can't fight the moonlight
by Pokka
Summary: All Soul wanted was a chance to build a life that was away from his parents and totally his own. So, when a swanky new nightclub sets up shop in a small town in West Virginia and extends a job offer, well, how could he refuse? Of course, all is not as it seems, and the first night in a new town, Soul winds up as some vampire's dinner. [Resbang 2018]
1. no sound but the wind

_Chapter One:_ **Soul**

When Soul Evans first thought about moving to West Virginia, all he could wonder was what the _fuck_ a 'West Virginia' even was. He thought he had a general idea where it was—farther down the east coast somewhere, presumably near the original Virginia—but overall, he had no idea what to expect. A cursitory Google search mostly just brought up a bunch of historical facts and nature-y things to do, which were mostly unhelpful, if a little too picturesque. The same sort of nonsense would pop up if he searched his home state of Maine. Unfortunately, that didn't give him a _feel_ for what it'd be like.

What about the people? The culture? Which pizza was the best and what old creepy forest would he have to crawl into to find mothman? These were the questions he needed answers to; not where he could go bungee jumping or whitewater rafting. Not that he was _against_ any of that...for other people. Solomon Ethan Evans was not an outdoorsman in any sense of the word, and that especially wouldn't change just because that was seemingly his only option for entertainment outside of his new job.

Speaking of, that was the whole reason he was even considering moving to the middle of bum-fuck nowhere. Some hot new jazz club, according to Wes. Exclusive, top-of-the-line, and apparently with a rotating theme every other week and an ever-changing password, it was every hipster blogger's dream. Frankly, it was kind of his, too. Getting paid top-dollar to play music in some swanky new club? He couldn't think of a better deal. Not to mention that he was never one for big cities in the first place. Social anxiety was one hell of a mistress - one that fucked him on the daily as it was.

Luckily for him, Wes had connections. Well, _technically_ Soul had connections, too. Anyone that knew Wes knew Soul and visa versa, but _this_ particular connection was an old flame of Wes'–one that stuck around long enough to hear Soul play and like his music. When he reached out, wondering if Soul was looking for a job that would get him six states and almost 900 miles away from his parents, how could he do anything but start packing his bags? It took a little doing, to find a place to live that wasn't either outrageously expensive or literally falling apart at the seams, but he managed to find a nice little two bedroom apartment above the town's diner. Once all the technicalities were said and done, he was on the first plane to the Mountain State.

Arriving in the little town was about as underwhelming as he expected. Looking all the world like a ghost town, he almost would have pegged it as one if he didn't know any better. The view from his second story window didn't do anything to prove him wrong, either. Empty streets, abandoned shops, faded and peeling paint. If he squinted, he thought he could see at least a little bit of life on main street, but he wasn't optimistic. How in the hell did a nightclub have any hope of surviving out here when it looked like civilization didn't stand a chance? Well, it was too late to back out now anyway. The closest airport was well over two hours away at best, and the drive out here made Soul nauseous enough that he didn't want to attempt to venture outside of it for at least a week. That being said, he supposed the only thing he _could_ do is start unpacking and maybe go down to the diner below and grab a bite, if he was feeling adventurous.

The club's big debut wasn't for another few days, and even then he wasn't expect to play the first night. Maybe he could play around with some music, figure out a set list or two. He needed to find something to occupy enough of his time that he wouldn't go crazy.

While he wasn't one much for the outdoors or big crowds, Soul was still a man who liked to get out of the house, and judging by the looks of this place, he wouldn't be doing much of that. Which, under normal circumstances, he'd bear it with a tight-lipped grin and maybe some music at full blast, but just walking around the place didn't give him much of a homey feeling, and he was sure throwing around a couple t-shirts and loose music sheets could change it. Brightside, though, was that he had a balcony.

He wanders over to check it out, and after literally wrestling the door open, he finds that it isn't much. But, going by the rest of the town, 'not much' was probably their motto. It's something, at least, and he braces his hands against the railing to lean out a little and really take in that 'fresh' air.

Until the old metal gives out and nearly sends him careening three stories down. Luckily, he catches himself on the piece still intact, heart racing as the metal clangs against the sidewalk down below.

Okay, so the balcony was officially off limits. Fantastic.

Oh, and to top it off, his cell service sucked.

After spending a solid two hours unpacking, Soul decides that he doesn't care to unbox everything. The essentials are out, of course: his music equipment, basic hygiene products, scattered clothes, and exactly a week's worth of dishes. What else could he need? Especially considering he wasn't even sure if this job would take off. No need in getting settled only to pack up and head home the next week.

After deciding all of this, he'd given a valiant attempt to get his shit together, job-wise, and get to work on his setlist, but every time his fingers brushed piano keys or hovered over the strings of a guitar or violin, he drew a blank. Nothing, nada, zilch. He tried to reason that he was tired, but even a nap didn't get the proverbial juices flowing.

By then, it was already nine, and a glance out his window showed that the town was just about as dead as it was in the middle of the day. That being said, real food was out of the question, but he figured it wouldn't hurt anything to go on a walk. That always helped him, gave him the chance to wander and let his mind do the same, and there was the added bonus that his chances of running into anyone were slim to none.

He dutifully locks up behind him as he leaves, despite the underlying knowledge that the people here probably didn't lock their own doors, and takes off down the street, hands buried in his jacket pockets. It's quiet, more so than he'd ever experienced, and he pauses in the middle of an intersection just to see if there was anything to be heard.

Distantly, he thought he could hear the faithful motor of a vehicle or two, and about a block away he could make out the sound of the bar's jukebox blaring. The best way to meet anyone here would probably be to head over there, and for a second he truly considers it, even takes a god honest step in the right direction, but he doesn't take that leap of faith. Instead, he turns on his heel and slumps off in the other direction, Wes' voice a chastising whine in the back of his mind.

Yeah, it'd be easier to meet everyone that way, but would Wes have considered the idea that Soul simply didn't _want_ to meet them? Of course not, his brother was never one to understand the inner workings of someone as 'hopelessly introverted' as Soul, but at least he wasn't here to make him feel bad about wandering the town in the middle of the night.

Once he'd gotten over whatever weird pseudo-guilt his brother's influence had wrapped him in, Soul had finally allowed himself to get lost in the sound of the crickets and the scuff of his shoes on the sidewalk, found that place inside of himself where the music thrived like a living thing. Unspooling the bars, spinning the notes around his fingers like keyrings and flipping the flats across his knuckles like coins. On the outside, he probably looked at least a little insane, hands dancing to a tune only he could hear, painting an image only he could see, but on the _inside?_

On the inside, there was nothing but beauty, an endless ocean of symphonies with waves of crashing crescendos, a galaxy of glittering ballads and swirling songs. He pauses at a darkened street corner, the light overhead nothing more than a dying orange, too weak to light anything. Soul taps at his phone's screen, still no service, and starts copying down his ideas, not wanting to forget anything before he can make it back to his apartment.

He feels a cold chill snake down his spine, the hair on the back of his neck standing on end, and he shakes his shoulders to try to rid of the feeling. It wasn't cold out by any means, maybe even a little too hot for late August, and he tosses a furtive glance over his shoulder, if only to quell the nagging in the pit of his stomach screaming _danger_.

There's nothing out of the apparent ordinary; a little coffee shop, faded lawn chairs perched on it's porch, and an old brick building that he thinks was once an antique shop. A glance the other way just shows the town's only gas station and a dumpy little car wash. Soul shakes out his shoulders again, warding off the distinct feeling of being watched, and continues on down the road. He cracks his neck, stretches his arms above his head, tries to get back in the groove of creativity.

Okay, good. It slowly comes back to him, bits and pieces, scattered melodies and lone notes, but it's a start. He just has to pick up where he left off. His fingers tap against his pant leg, a silent beat, nothing other than his own steady footsteps.

Then, a rock rolls out of the darkness ahead.

Soul freezes in place, feels that cold sweat come back with a vengeance as he stares at that piece of gravel, maybe half the size of his fist. Sitting there, innocently, half an inch from the toe of his shoe. He swallows thickly, peers into that darkness, and dimly thinks that it looks much darker than it had a moment before.

"Uh," he clears his throat, tries to sound as unafraid and imposing as possible. "Hello? Who's there?"

The darkness doesn't answer, unsurprisingly. There's nothing but the whisper of the wind, and he starts to think that maybe he just psyched himself out. It could've been just an animal, a raccoon or something, and it hit the rock when he got too close. Yeah. That's a perfectly plausible explanation that he'll cling to. Maybe watching a bunch of old slasher flicks on the flight over wasn't the best idea he'd ever had, but he'd live.

' _Probably,'_ that voice in the back of his head said, and he had to swallow a laugh at his own foolishness. Getting himself all worked up over a _rock,_ of all things. With a derisive snort, he kicks the rock back the way it came, deciding that he needed to just call it a night and head home.

He turns around to find a mouth full of teeth, sharp, too many, a smile too wide, and he doesn't have time to scream before it descends upon him with a hungry snarl.

Soul comes to sometime later with a weak groan, his throat a desert, tongue nothing more than a dune. His mind is foggy and when he tries to look around, there's nothing but darkness. Was it still dark out? Or something worse? He tries to move, finds a weight atop him. Something moving, alive, and that's when he realizes that the steady groan isn't coming from him at all. He croaks something, maybe a cry for help, and the weight eases.

Teeth. Just like before, sharper than sharp, no longer white but dripping with red. The full lips framing them pull into a wicked smile. "Nice of you to join me," she purrs, unworldly blue eyes shining in the dark. Tongue darts out, swipes the red from her lip. "Sorry for starting dinner without you." She caresses his cheek, fingers ice cold, chilling him to the bone. He flinches, a whimper building in his throat unbidden. "But you just smelled so _delicious_ , I couldn't help myself."

"Puh-please-" His teeth chatter, heels slipping against the bed of pine needles, hands digging into the earth despite his arms feeling like dead weight. The woman, the _thing_ above him chuckles, her hand coming to rest on his chest, just above his heart. His blood feels like ice in his veins, sluggish slush that made his very bones feel tired.

"Begging doesn't become you," she says, almost pityingly, before cracking her neck and descending upon his once again. Her teeth sink into his flesh, his every nerve lighting on fire with a shower of sparks that dances behind his eyelids, and he tries to squirm away. It's a weak attempt, but even so, she presses her palm to his forehead and presses him down into the dirt. Her hair is so long, he can feel it wrapped around his fingers, and he gives it a defiant tug, even as that ice in his veins solidifies and darkens the corners of his vision.

Her lips leave his neck with an annoyed sigh, glowing blue irises cutting to his face, sharper than her teeth. She bares them in his face, blood trailing from the corners to drip from her chin and onto his. He flinches as each drop hits his skin, molten against the chill. He whispers babbling pleas, unsure of what he says just knowing he needs to say it. Tears slip from the corners of his eyes, fall to the forest floor. He thinks of his parents, of Wes. Feels his heart break at the thought of them hearing that he died- _if_ they heard that he died.

Soul's lips keep forming the shape of the words, but he's already relaxed into the cold earth, the fight leaking from his veins just as steadily as his blood. The woman still stares at him, her outline illuminated by the moon peeking through the trees. There's still fear in his heart, sleeved over his muscles, but it's a dull thing now. Now, he's just tired, genuinely sleepy, each blink slower than the last. Still, he watches her through hooded lids, determined to be his own final witness. But, as he watches her, something... _strange_ happens.

A shiver runs down her spine, and she suddenly sits ramrod straight, glowing blue eyes blinking rapidly, as if coming out a haze. Her head whips from side to side, checking her surroundings, before finally falling to him. If at all possible, she seems to grow paler.

"Oh my god."

She's horrified, eyes wide, her hands clasped over her mouth. Hesitantly, she reaches down to feel his pulse-on the side of his neck she hadn't ruined-and her breath catches when she confirms that he's alive, if only barely. "Oh my god," she repeats, "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." Over and over, panicked. If he couldn't feel his heart's painfully sluggish beating, he'd maybe even feel sorry for her.

As she breaks down, hands threaded into her hair, Soul watches as the darkness coalesces behind her, blotting out the moon. Deliriously, he wonders if it's death, come to whisk him away, but the bone-white hand that reaches from that darkness doesn't come for him, instead landing heavily upon the woman's shoulder.

She freezes, statuesque. A voice floats around them, as if unattached to whoever-or _what_ ever- the shadows were. "Tsk, tsk, tsk." It seems to mock. "Killing a human is _illegal,_ fledgling."

"I didn't mean to," she whispers. "I don't know what happened." She still doesn't move, hands fisted in her hair so tight it's a wonder she doesn't rip it out.

"Do you really think Kid will care?" Another hand materializes out of the shadows, grips her other shoulder. "One of his own, breaking a cardinal rule. He'll have to make an example of you."

"No," she whispers, meeting Soul's murky stare.

"Perhaps, he'll even punish your maker." There's a smile in it's tone, as if the thought pleased it. "Her prodigy, murdering right here in town, on _wolf_ territory, no less." A strangled gasp escapes the woman, tears slipping down her face, pearlescent in the dim moonlight. "What about your dear sister? A precaution, to be sure. How could he let the whole poisoned bloodline live without consequence?"

Finally, she thaws, whirling to face the darkness, still on her knees. " _Please._ " There's something in her voice that pleases the shadows, the darkness spooling into something resembling a man with too many appendages. The woman gasps, falling back on her ass. "No, no. You're not here." She reaches for her hair again, but those hands snatch her wrists.

"Oh, child," it croons. "That's what they've wanted you to believe." It yanks her to her feet, draws her close to it's swirling gloom. One of the hands caresses her cheek, heedless of the way she flinches back. "Come with me, and I can make this all go away."

She sends a furtive glance at Soul, sees the dirt beneath his head darkened with his blood, watches his fingers twitch weekly, as if he wanted to reach out to her. She looks back into that abyss and nods frantically, agreeing to it's terms.

Teeth, just like the ones Soul faced on the street, bloom out of the murk in a pleased smile. "It shall be done."

Two fingers of one ivory hand curl. Soul chokes, blood gurgling past his lips as his throat tears itself open, and he watches as the woman is swallowed into the living night, before he finally gives into his own darkness.


	2. rolling in on a burning tire

_Chapter Two:_ **Maka**

Maka wakes up to the blaring of her alarm clock and the smell of burning coffee. She cracks an eye open, blearily reading the angry little red numbers before smacking the snooze. Five in the morning. She watches as the zero on the end flickers to a one. Her hair, still damp from the night before, clinging to the back of her neck uncomfortably. She toys with the idea of staying in bed, of canceling today and simply relaxing, but the unmistakable sound of someone being body-checked into the wall outside her door promptly banished the thought.

She closes her eyes, not to sleep, but to brace herself against the hallway light that comes pouring in through her open door as Thunder and Fire come crashing in. The former vaulting over the footboard, her knee colliding sharply with Maka's hip. She groans into her pillow, recoiling away from the painful knees of one twin and into the too-awake gaze of the other. "Maka, get up we gotta get ready for school and Dad worked late last night so he's sleeping, do you know where my sneakers are? The red ones with the black laces, not the maroon ones, they don't go with my outfit today–Oh! Also Thunder wants to know if you'll make us pancakes because Blake only made us eggs for like the past week 'cause that's all he knows how to make and–"

Maka claps her hand over his motormouth, squinting at him through the sleepy grit in her eyes. "Fire, I love you with my entire heart, but if you don't stop talking I swear to god you will walk to school in what you're wearing right now." It's worth noting that he was only wearing a pair of racecar boxers, an oversized Tweety-Bird shirt, and a single sock. She gives him The Look, silently asking if he promises to keep the word-vomit to a minimum, and she takes away her hand at his frantic nod. "Okay," she groans as she sits up, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed and cracking her back with a series of loud pops. "Your _red_ shoes, _not_ the maroon ones, _should_ be by the door but they're under the coffee table. And yes, I'll make pancakes." Fire beams and streaks off out into the hall, presumably to get dressed but most likely to watch cartoons. Maka glances over her shoulder to find Thunder burrowed under the covers, mussy tufts of blonde hair poking up out of her blanket burrito.

She smiles and rolls back onto the bed to bear hug the wrapped up log of preteen. Thunder promptly groans somewhere beneath the layers of cotton and down, wriggling under Maka's weight until her head pops out of the blankets with a whiney, " _Makaaaaaaaaaaa."_ To make matters worse, Maka smooshes her cheek against Thunder's, cooing some nonsense about her precious swaddled baby, until the girl finally gathers her strength to throw her off and make a beeline for the door—Maka's comforter still wrapped around her shoulders like a cape.

Half-an-hour later and she's finally woken herself up enough to get dressed and make her way downstairs. She finds the twins on the couch, watching old Full House reruns until the cartoons come on, and in the kitchen, Jackie's slumped over the dinner table with her hands firmly wrapped around a mug of coffee. Turns out, she didn't turn off the pot, thus the source of the smell, and the only thing left is some blackened sludge stuck to the bottom of the faded glass. Maka turns off the maker and dumps the pot in the sink before slinking over to a softly snoring Jackie, peeking in her cup and giving an experimental sniff. There's something sweet and suspiciously chocolatey in there somewhere, but between whatever monstrosity Jackie made and no caffeine at all, her back was against the wall. She carefully pries the mug out of her hands, a couple drops sloshing over the side, and takes a sip, nose wrinkling. Okay, gross, but it could be worse.

Maka shakes her head against the weird taste, but ultimately moves on to getting the pancakes started. Pulling the mix down from the cabinet and turning on the stove. Or, at least, _trying_ to. The pilot light was out. Again. "Fuck," she glances around for a lighter, but settles for the next best thing. "Jackie." She shakes the woman's shoulder, expertly dodging out of the way as she jerks upright with a startled 'whuh'. Maka gives her a moment to get her bearings, to scrub the sleep out of her eyes and swipe the trail of drool on her chin. "Jackie, the pilot light is out again."

Jackie blinks owlishly, staring through Maka for a few seconds before her eyes focus. She nods and snaps her fingers, flicking her pointer finger at the stove, sending a tiny flame flying at the stovetop and igniting the burner. Maka smiles and ruffles Jackie's already messy hair. "Thanks. Go on ahead upstairs and get some sleep." She grunts noncommittally and wanders away, feet shuffling against the worn wood. While Maka dutifully sets to work on the pancakes, she glances at her watch, then to the handwritten schedule on the fridge. "Thunder, Fire," she calls, "go get dressed. And while you're up there, go ahead and get up," she pauses, making sure she's got the names right, "Blake, Stein, Marie, Harvar, Nygus and Sid." The kids groan and slump to the floor, but with vague threats of no breakfast and extra chores, they scramble up the stairs. "And make sure they're awake before you come back down!" She calls after them, doing her best to stretch away from the stove to yell up the stairs but stay within arms reach.

Some indiscernible amount of time later, the pancakes are finished alongside a healthy array of eggs, toast, bacon, sausage, bagels, and three boxes of cereal. Thunder and Fire come thumping down the stairs, dressed for the day, followed by a very tired Blake. The kids practically crash into their seats, tearing into the spread like they haven't eaten in weeks. Maka sits perched on the counter, a fresh mug of coffee held in one hand and her phone in the other. As Blake slumps into the seat closest to Maka, she silently offers her cup, smiling a little when he takes it with a grateful groan, his eyes still crusted shut with sleep. She reaches behind her and produces another full cup, takes a sip, checks her email. From the living room, the theme song of some cartoon blares, and she shoots the twins a glare as they try to sneak their food in to watch. Reprimanded, they duck their heads and slink back down in their chairs, eating their food with less enthusiasm, as if to protest her strict rules of trying to keep the goddamn house clean.

Next down the stairs comes Stein and Marie, the latter dressed in pale pink scrubs and looking much too chipper for the early hour, the former looking like he'd just rolled out of bed. Maka hands off a mug to each of them, raising a brow as Stein leans against the counter and ignores the bounty laid before him. "You gotta eat something." The look he gives her in unamused. "C'mon. Breakfast is–"

"–the most important meal of the day. I'm aware." He sips his coffee, pushes his glasses up his nose. Despite his apparent aversion to the meal Maka so lovingly slaved over, his wife happily digs in, her plate piled high with eggs and toast, a bagel in her hand. Stein shoots Maka a look. "I'm perfectly capable of starting my day without artificial sugar and animal fat."

She rolls her eyes, points behind him. "There are blueberry muffins in the microwave." He doesn't hesitate in yanking open the door and snatching one, happily taking a bite before dropping into the seat beside Marie. Maka shakes her head, far too used to the antics of her household, and hops off the counter. Sid and Nygus make their way down the stairs next, Sid scooping up a couple strips of bacon and making a beeline for the door, Nygus pinching off a piece of Stein's muffin as she slips into the seat beside him. "Hey, hey, hey," Maka calls after Sid, catching him as he balances on one foot to pull on his boot, mouth stuffed full of bacon. She throws her hands up. "Where're you going?"

He fumbles with the meat in his mouth, trying to swallow enough to talk. It's not until he nearly chokes that he shoves his boot on the rest of the way and reaches up to grab the excess. "Gonna go start the cars, check the garden, and run perimeter." Maka blinks, a little taken aback, but nods nonetheless and sends him on his way. Sid wasn't usually one to pass up on breakfast, but she wasn't about to complain if he was in the mood to do chores.

"He woke up with a bad feelin'," Nygus supplies, pouring herself a glass of orange juice. Ah. That explained it. Whenever Sid 'had a feeling', he had to act on it—and he usually turned out to be right, in some capacity. Maka screws her mouth to the side, feels a seed of worry plant itself in her stomach. A shiver runs itself down her spine, she shakes out her shoulders, and tries to swallow her own bad feeling. Instead, she turns back to her family; watches as the twins polish off their plates, dump them in the sink, and bolt to the living room to wrap themselves up in Maka's comforter and watch tv; finds Blake finally coherent, shoveling food into his mouth at a nauseating pace, a chunk of blue hair stuck to the syrup smeared across his cheek; Marie waving her fork through the air as she talks, an animation usually reserved for particularly difficult patients; Stein sipping his coffee, occasionally dipping pieces of his muffin in it, watching his wife rant, pretending to be oblivious when Nygus snags a blueberry poking out of his muffin.

Someone's missing. She leans over the back of the couch, next to the twins. "Where's Harvar?" They both shrug helpfully, never looking away from the television. Maka sighs, turns on her heel and strides up the stairs. Stein sneaks a fork full of eggs off Maire's plate, and Maka calls back down the stairs, "I saw that!"

Maka's fist bangs against the door, but her eyes remain on her watch. If he didn't hurry his ass up, he was going to make everyone late. "Harvar! Get a move on or you're walking to work!" She bangs at the door a little harder, hears the shift and shuffle of clothes, and stops banging just in time for him to swing open the door.

"I'm up." He says by way of greeting, squinting against the hallway light, hair thrown in a haphazard ponytail.

"I see that." She huffs, hands on her hips. "We gotta get movin' here in a couple minutes, so you need to get a move on." She keeps an ear out, listens as someone goes out the front door, as someone else starts up the dishwasher. Harvar rubs his eyes, turns back to his darkened room to snatch up a plain black t-shirt and tug it over his head. Maka leans against the doorframe as he moves deeper into his room, swiping his belt off the back of his desk chair, looping it around his waist as he turns a slow circle, searching for something.

She raises a silent brow, and without looking up, he says, "Shoes."

"Under your bed." Harvar stops, looks her way, and after a pointed second of just staring, he drops to his knees and peers under his bed. She smiles at the way his spine stiffens in surprise just before he reaches under and drags out his boots. "Told you." The look he gives her is entirely unamused; even more so when she flicks on the lights. Maka leans forward and yanks open his dresser drawer, grabbing a pair of socks and tossing them to him. She studies him for a moment as he tugs his shoes on, wrapping the laces around the shaft and pulling tight before tying them off. "I don't understand why Papa has you openin' up the restaurant so early," she muses aloud, answered only by the glance Harvar spares her way. "I mean, the cooks don't even get there until nine."

"Where else would the day-drinkers go?" He asks, humor lacing his tone. "Heaven forbid they go to Greg's and buy a six-pack to tide them over."

Maka gasps, hand over her heart. "Blasphemy!" A beat. "Better not let Papa hear you say that." They both laugh, and Maka backs out of the doorway as Harvar stuffs his wallet in his pocket and follows her out. He tugs his door shut behind him and they both glance at their watches as they wander down the hall. She cuts him a look from the corner of her eye, "You're really pushin' it this morning, huh?"

He nudges her as they tromp down the stairs. "Blame your old man. He had me close up last night."

"Seriously?" She sighs, hooks her hand around the banister as she hops off the last step. "He's gotta find someone else to do it if he's gonna have you opening, too." Harvar shrugs noncommittally, sliding into Blake's vacated seat to shovel as much food in his mouth as he can before leaving. Maka merely clicks her tongue at him, making a mental note to chew her father out later. She couldn't have him running poor Harvar ragged; especially not when he has plenty of other employees to keep the place in working order.

Shaking her head, she dismisses the thought for another time, scooping up her work bag and slinging it over her shoulder. By the door, she slips on her shoes and grabs the twins' bookbags, heading outside to toss them in the cab of her truck–now warm, thanks to Sid.

At the thought of him, she shuts the door and looks out to the woods surrounding her home, hands on her hips. That seed of worry that had planted itself in her stomach now began to bloom, twining around her ribcage, thorns poking into her lungs and making it hard to breath. Sid usually wasn't wrong, when he suspected something amiss, and that made her nervous. Fog hovers over the lake in the middle of the property, it's surface rippling in the early morning breeze, and she shivers; from the wind or from the skittish energy crackling under her skin, she isn't sure. She purses her lips, body leaning toward the treeline, half-tempted to shift into that wolf prowling beneath her skin and go see for herself that everything was alright–work be damned–but the boards of the porch creak, and she turns to find Stein, who says, "Blackstar already went to help Sid, if he needs it."

Something loosens in her chest, if only a little. "Okay." She nods once, maybe reassuring herself. "Okay." Stein simply watches, waiting. She knows he wouldn't say anything if she wanted to take off after Blake and Sid, would take the kids to school without a word. Maka shakes out her shoulders, trying to recenter herself enough to trust in her family, to leave them behind long enough to go to work, but there's just that _feeling_ that something very bad is about to happen. "You'll tell me if anything happens?" She doesn't need to ask. Blake, as her second in command, would tell her, but she needs the verbal reminder.

"You'll be the first to know." He confirms with a dip of his head, eyes sharp with understanding. She swallows thickly, jerks her head toward the house and watches as he disappears inside to round everyone up and send them out.

Maka tosses one last glance to the woods, as if Blake and Sid would come running and give her the all clear just like that, but the trees remain still, undisturbed. As if sensing her dour mood and the too-still morning, the twins come barreling out of the house, breath turning to fog that quickly dissipates as they sprint through it, racing for her truck. Thunder's hand thumps against it's faded blue body as she crows with victory, voice echoing in the clearing, yanking open the passenger-side door and bowing with a flourish as Fire slides to the middle with a disgruntled grumble. She flashes Maka an innocent grin before climbing in beside her brother, pulling the door shut behind her and immediately moving to fiddle with Maka's precious radio. Marie, Nygus, and Harvar stream from the house and make a line for Nygus' jeep. They each send her a comforting smile, or something close to it; sensing her unease.

It's probably nothing, she knows, but it doesn't stop her from worrying.

"I've got them." Stein intones from the porch, now sitting on the steps, socked feet resting on the bottom stair and his mug of coffee cradled between his palms. He gives her a nod, sure and steady. Knowing she trusts him to keep their pack, their _family,_ safe. She nods again, and hops in her truck, peeling out of the dusty driveway behind the others; leaving Blake's car idling in it's spot.

The whole way down their winding lane, she keeps her eyes peeled for any sign of Blake or Sid. Any movement, any sound that she picks up over the rumble of her engine and the early morning talk show on the radio, but she doesn't see anything. The kids, rowdy at the house, were now quiet and tense beside her, both looking out their own window.

Say what you will about them, but those kids know how to read a room.

They spend a long few minutes in terse silence, until the wards protecting their property shimmer and sift over their skin, a waterfall of blue sparks raining over the windshield. All three of them let out a breath–relieved or not, they're not sure–and Maka does her best to break the silence by asking Thunder about her upcoming soccer game. Luckily, she launches into an animated rant, almost hitting Fire with all her gesturing, and she's thankful for the distraction. The blooming worry in her chest begins to wilt, if only a little, and she relaxes into her seat as Thunder talks about the girl on the opposing team whose _way_ too old to be in their league.

It isn't until they're halfway to the main road that she feels that odd sort of _something_ wind around her bones and squeeze, a cold finger scrape down her spine and send her hair standing on end. Something was wrong, something with her pack. She slams on the breaks, arm flung out to keep the kids from smashing into the dashboard, pulling her phone out of her back pocket just as it begins to ring. She answers before it makes it through it's first tone, punching the ancient horn and watching Nygus slam on her own breaks as Stein says, "We need you. Now."

Maka's throat closes around that tone. "I'm on my way." She tosses her phone beside her and leans across the twins to throw open their door. "Go get in with the others," She says, nudging them out and practically throwing their bags at them.

"What's going on?" Fire asks, just as Thunder says, "Are they okay?"

"I don't know. I'll tell y'all as soon as I do." A final shove and they both hop out, slamming the door behind them. "Go! Before you're late!" She barely has the mind to wait long enough to watch them actually get in the car, but once they're safely out of the way, she whips around with a spray of dirt and rock, speeding back the way she came.

Maka pulls up to the house with a wild look in her eye, launching herself out of the truck without turning it off and sprinting for the house. Stein meets her on the porch, screen door slamming behind him, his face drawn and somehow more serious than usual. She notices the rolled up sleeves, the hair pinned out of his face. "What happened?"

The words had barely left her mouth before the smell of blood hit her; sharp, coppery, enough to make her stomach twist itself into knots. Not coming from the house, though, but from behind. The woods. Sid and Blake emerge from the treeline and she takes off on a dead sprint, leaving Stein motionless on the porch, grim determination on his face. She breathless when she reaches them, looks them both over for injury before allowing her gaze to settle on the thing cradled between them.

Oh. _Oh._

Not a _thing_ , but a person–hanging limply between the two of them, crusted in dirt and dried blood, pale and damp with the morning dew. She sucks in a breath through her teeth, reaches forward to press her hand to his chest, not wanting to touch the gorey mess of his neck but still wanting to see if he had a pulse. There's nothing, not even a flutter, but his chest still rises and falls in short, tiny breaths. She pulls her hand away, clenching it into a fist against the slight tremor in her fingers. She shares a look with Sid, with Blake, the same dread curdling in her stomach reflecting in their eyes. They're all silent for one long minute, standing still in that wide open field around their home, as Maka thinks. She's the alpha, she's the boss; whatever she wants to do, they'll do it. She considers the risks, the consequences of taking him in, of letting the venom in his veins finish it's job.

She jerks her head toward the house, turning on her heel. "Take him to the attic." Maka doesn't stop to check if they followed her orders, trusting that they will, as she takes off back to intercept Stein as he meets her in the yard. She relays her order, tells him to get the spare bed up there prepped, and she leaves him to carry it out. Her throat is tight, her jaw aching with how she grinds her teeth, but her stride doesn't falter as she enters the tool shed half-hidden behind the house. Yanking open the heavy wooden door, the smell of old oil and gasoline hits her like a punch to the gut, but it steadies her, somehow. Maybe the familiarity of it, or maybe the way it washes away the lingering stench of blood that clings to the air like static to a balloon. She rubs her nose, as if she could banish the smell of carrion and rot that clung to that poor boy, and reaches for the heavy leather gloves hanging out of one of the many tool boxes littering the space. She pulls them on, flexing her fingers experimentally before kneeling and dragging out a heavy metal box, the lid covered with a healthy layer of dust and grime.

Maka swallows, almost apprehensively, and pries off the lid. Inside, a tangle of thick, gleaming silver chains lay innocently. Despite the way her very blood recoils, she reaches in and gathers up the chains, draping them over her arm–careful to keep them on the glove, from touching her skin. Of all the rumors and superstitions, the ones about silver are the most true. Vampires don't flinch at garlic, a stake to the heart would kill _anyone_ , and no, crucifixes and other religious artifacts have little to no sway over most supernatural beings. Silver, however, is a fickle bitch. Blessed or not, it doesn't matter, something about it _burns_ , excruciatingly so. On _any_ supernatural. No one knows why, but the general consensus is that it's a small price to pay for the slew of perks that come with being a creature of myth and legend.

Chains in hand, Maka heads back into the house. There's a trail of dirt and blood leading up the stairs, totally at odds with the cartoons still on the television and the smell of maple syrup lingering from breakfast, but she doesn't allow herself to dwell on it. Doesn't allow herself to dwell on what hell she might be bringing down on her pack, her family. Up the stairs she thumps, down the hall, and through the door at the end, climbing up the creaky steps into the humidity of the attic. Blake and Sid have the kid laid out on the old bed, Stein kneeling at his bedside as he tries to clean up his neck enough to see the extent of the damage. The former two look to Maka for further instruction, arms crossed over bare chests, fingers still unnaturally elongated, tipped in wicked claws with teeth to match. As if they expected the boy to leap from the bed and tear into them all.

She ignores them as she passes, still mulling over what they should do next, and instead sets to work binding their new guest. Stein pays her little mind, only glancing up briefly before setting back to work. Maka pulls the boy's arm to the bedpost, carefully wrapping the chain around the steel before finally binding his arm by the wrist. Despite whatever stage of transformation he's in, his arm still violently jerks against the silver, the metal burning and melting into his skin. After a moment, he stills once again. She shares a look with Stein; whatever hope they had before that it _wasn't_ a vampire attack was officially out the window. She sighs through her nose, proceeding to bind the rest of his limbs, each of them jerking and fighting against the sear of the silver.

Once he's sufficiently bound, she steps back, hands on her hips–smearing bloody fingerprints on the pure white of her scrubs. "Blake, run down to the basement and grab three bags of A-positive." Wordlessly, he turns to leave, but she throws out a hand to stop him–breathing deeply through her nose. "Scratch that. A-negative." Blake disappears down the stairs, and she turns toward Sid. "Get ahold of the others. Give them an update–the bare minimum, I don't want them to panic–and tell them to stay at Kim's for now, until I say otherwise." He nods, pulling his phone out of his pocket as he heads down the stairs; leaving Stein and Maka alone with their new pet project.

She and Stein sit in silence for a moment; the former staring at the face of their guest, the latter rocking back on his heels as he drops a bloodied rag to the dusty floor. Stein looks at her over his shoulder, face carefully blank. "What're we going to do?"

Something in her loosens at that. What're _we_ going to do. Together. She has to remember that they're in this together. She sighs, shoulders sagging, scrubs a hand across her forehead. "I'm not sure. Either we give him the blood and help the process along, or…" She trails off, watches as a bolt of understanding flashes in Stein's eyes. "I doubt this happened to him willingly and who knows how he could react if he Changes. But at the same time...it feels wrong to just let him die."

"Well, out of all of us, you'd know best what it means to be Changed against your will." Maka stiffens, pursing her lips, but if he notices, he doesn't show it. He stands, knees popping loudly, and he claps a hand on her shoulder as he says, "Whatever you think is best, we'll do it, but you'd better think fast before it's too late." She nods absently, eyes locked the mess of the boy's throat. Stein huffs something that could be a laugh or a sigh, and disappears down the stairs, fishing a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket as he goes.

She waits a moment, hesitating, before finally crossing that space and perching on the edge of the mattress. She studies his face; clear skin, clean shaven, his eyelashes and eyebrows the same snowy white as his hair. Maka swallows thickly, turns away from his face and instead rummages through his pockets; finds a phone, it's screen cracked and crusted with blood, a keyring with a single key dangling from it, and a wallet. She tries the power button on the phone, but an empty battery simply blinks up at her, so she tucks it into her pocket–sure they had a charger to fit it laying around somewhere. She disregards the key entirely, putting it away beside the phone, and instead flips open the wallet. Nice, supple leather. The letters " _S.E.E"_ monogrammed in swirling cursive on the inside pocket. Maka runs the pad of her thumb over them thoughtfully, glancing between the initials and their owner.

The sound of the door opening shakes her out of her reverie, and she quickly flips through the cards lining the inside, finds the one she was looking for. Blake stops behind her, peering over her shoulder. "Solomon Evans? Who the hell is that?"

"Him, apparently." She says, waving the card at Solomon's face. "What someone from Maine would be doing all the way down here, I have no idea." Blake merely grunts in agreement, and snatches the card and wallet out of her hand, only to replace them with the blood she'd asked for. She weighs the bags in her hand, chews on her lip, tries to ignore Solomon's weight on the bed next to her; torn between making this call as one person to another, as saving his life versus letting him die right here in her home, and making this call as an alpha, as someone with a responsibility, not only to her pack, but to the rest of the supernatural world as well.

Blake notices her hesitation, the look on her face that he knows all too well. "Hey," he nudges her shoulder with his hip. "You already know what to do." When she looks to him, he simply nods, and something like pride swells just beneath his ribs as her resolve turns the green of her eyes into something harder than steel. He'd follow her to hell and back, and as he watches her tear open the corner of one of the blood bags with her teeth, as he helps her tilt back Solomon's head and pour that blood in his mouth, watching the open wounds on his throat seal themselves up, he knows that he very well may have to before this is all over.


	3. new for you alive or dead

_Chapter Three:_ **Soul**

There's nothing but the dryness of his throat. It's all-consuming, the only thought that fills his mind, so deeply ingrained into his being that his teeth _ache_. He can't remember how to open his eyes, move his body, do anything but lay there and wish for something to quench his thirst. He breathes through clenched teeth, panting like a dog in the sun, as if the musty air could soothe the rasp of his tongue against the roof of his mouth. A door opens and shuts, a lawnmower roars dully, a newscaster drones on a television; none of it matters, doesn't register as something out of the ordinary. Beneath it all, there's a rythmic thumping, layered one over the other over the other, the delicious sound of rushing water. Instinctively, he jerks forward, toward that beautiful source of fluid.

He doesn't notice the awkward pull of his muscles or the way his hair is matted to the back of his head until he tries to sit up, feeling something shift around his wrists, like manacles of fire. Something between a cry and a snarl tears itself from his throat, slipping past his barred teeth like a knife through cell bars, and he sinks back down onto the mattress. Footsteps sound somewhere below, drawing ever closer, bringing one of those beating hearts for him to drink dry. The thought clatters through him– _a heartbeat, that's what he was hearing, what made his mouth water_ –but it's gone before he can grasp it, before he can use it like a lifeline to pull himself from that endless pit of thirst. A door opens, bringing with it a gust of cool air and something warm, alive. Something that comes up the stairs, something with a scent that makes his insides flip with a mix of hunger and disgust. They step closer, and the thirst releases it's hold on him enough to allow him to finally snap his eyes open.

She's small, in every sense of the word. Short, skinny, almost child-like. Well, except for the way she carries herself; hands on her hips, the muscles of her legs apparent even from under her well-worn jeans, and the totally unimpressed look she levels him with as he bares his teeth at her. He tugs at his restraints, hisses at the burn, but doesn't look away.

 _If she'd just get a little closer…_

She purses her lips, watching him for a moment, as if searching for something, but if she finds whatever it is, she doesn't show it. She simply turns away and ducks behind a stack of dusty boxes, rummages around in something out of his line of sight, but the smell still hits him like a train. Again, a growl rumbles in his chest, something low and guttural and _feral_. The girl comes back, bags of deep, _delicious_ red cradled in her hands; smelling _far_ more appetizing than she does. She stops a foot away from the bed, snaps her fingers in his face when he doesn't look away from the bags in her other hand.

"Ground rules: I'll feed you. You don't bite me. If you try anything, I'll stake you before you get your weird little shark teeth anywhere near me." Something in him bristles at the challenge; something that luckily also gets beaten back by the thirst. "Don't fuck this up, and maybe you'll be unchained by nightfall." She pauses, studies him again, and drops into a squat at his bedside. Two of the bags are set on the floor at her feet, and the other, she carefully shakes out, thin fingers smoothing out the top to press the lingering blood down, and she draws a pair of kitchen shears from her back pocket to cut the corner off. He thinks he might be drooling, probably is, but can't find a single damn to give about it. She holds the bag over his chest, just far enough out of reach of his begging mouth, that he almost growls at her again, until he realizes it was just a ploy to keep him distracted enough that she could slip her hand under his head to support him, without tempting him to try to take a chunk out of her wrist.

Carefully, she guides that spout to his mouth and lets it pour, blinking in surprise as he greedily bites down and drinks deeply, swallowing it down in great gulps, eyes closed in rapture as it finally scratches that itch. All too soon, he's sucking on air, the plastic crinkling in protest, and before he, too, can protest, she's replacing it with another. She didn't open this one the way she had before, and part of him relishes in the feeling of his teeth sinking through the plastic, of the carnal pleasure of tearing into the skin of that forbidden fruit. He sinks further into the mattress, relaxing as that terrible hunger subsides, leaving him finally in control of himself once more, if a little mellowed by the satisfied haze settling into his bones. Once he finishes off that bag too, she sets it aside with the other, and holds up the third and final bag, arching a blonde brow in question. Part of him cringes at how eagerly he nods, but the second his teeth pierce that plastic, he couldn't care less. A drop of blood slithers from the corner of his mouth, sliding down to trail along his jaw before dripping onto the thin pillow beneath his head. The girl grabs the corner of the blanket and swipes it away, dutifully drawing the bag away as he releases it with a gasp, sitting it upright before the rest could spill.

She quickly snatches back the hand that'd been supporting his head–not that he'd try to get at her now; he felt pleasantly full, as if he'd just had a big Thanksgiving meal. He watches her through half-lidded eyes as she rocks to her feet, rolling up the top of the third bag and ducking behind those boxes to put it back where she got it. When she finishes, she stands near the foot of his bed, near the gleaming chain that burned the flesh of his ankle, her arms crossed and hip cocked. Like she was waiting on something. Waiting on _him_.

Soul watches her in turn, trying to sort through the mess of thoughts that assault him, now that the all-consuming thirst has finally left him fully. The lingering tang of iron on his tongue makes his stomach threaten to revolt, despite that new _thing_ in his mind telling him that nothing was out of the ordinary. Despite it, he still turns as far his restraints will allow before gagging, throat working as he heaves, but nothing comes up. She lurches forward, pressing on his shoulder to push him back against the bed. "Easy, easy." Her tone is gentle, totally at odds at how she'd spoken to him before. He lets her push him back, sinking into the mattress, still sick to his stomach but unable to empty its contents. She smooths his hair back away from his face, brows drawn. Soul pants, trying to force air into his lungs, but there's no relief, like he doesn't even _need_ the air. Her hand pushes through his hair, nails scraping his scalp–he thinks she pauses to toss aside a leaf she found there–but nonetheless, the action soothes him.

Slowly, he calms.

Slowly, he can come back to himself enough to meet her gaze, and give a shallow nod to tell her he was alright; for now.

She backs off with a nod of her own, crossing her arms over her chest as she retreats to the foot of the bed; as if his panic was just a ruse to get her in biting-range. Which is _ridiculous_ , the idea that he'd _bite_ her; he's not a vampire or something. Wait. He runs his tongue across his teeth, as if he could confirm the ridiculous suspicion swirling in his mind, but with teeth already unnaturally sharp, there wasn't anything to be found. His hands fidget, fingers reaching up to wrap around the chains–another thing that he _knows_ he should be freaking out about, but with the whole _everything_ to choose from, it's getting kind of hard to pick a starting point–but he quickly decides against it as his skin sizzles and burns.

She watches his hands impassively, back to her previous demeanor, green eyes carefully bored as she says, "Yeah, I wouldn't suggest doing that." The sarcasm throws him, the remark so at odds with torrent of shit going on in his head, that it actually makes all of his thoughts screech to a stop, as if trying to figure out how a dash of normalcy could possibly fit into his current experience. Whatever look he was giving her, apparently it was enough to spur her into tossing him a line. She sighs, pulls a little wooden stool from somewhere behind her, settles herself on it and says, "I'm Maka, and I already know your name, Solomon."

"Soul." He corrects weakly, something in his chest constricting uncomfortably until she holds up his wallet, his initials plain as day on the front. He can smell the leather, can see the stitching that's starting to wear down on the bottom corner, right in the fold of it. He knows that's not right, the clarity of his sight, but pairing it with the burning of the chains and the whole _blood_ thing, all signs point to...something that rhymes with camp-fire, and he's just not willing to accept something _that_ insane.

She merely dips her head in acknowledgement, starts staring him down again in a way that makes skin try to crawl away to avoid it. It's like sitting in the principal's office. When he doesn't say anything for another minute, she sighs again. "Alright, obviously you're not the talkative type, but how about you tell me what you think is going on right now, and I'll tell you how close you are. Sound good?"

Like playing a game of warm-and-cold. He wanted to laugh, but the more he thought about it, the more he thought it was a good idea. Sure, he might be murdered soon, but at least crazy questions weren't off the table. "Am I going to die soon?"

Her eyes go wide, and he immediately regrets asking, but it's the first thing to blurt past his lips. She's quiet for a long moment, and he half-expects her to get angry, or maybe reassure him that she won't hurt him (wishful thinking on his part, perhaps), but instead she just laughs. He startles, tugging at his restraints in the process, and she clamps her hand over her mouth as she shoots him an apologetic look. Maka clears her throat and waves her hand, "Sorry, um. You're not going to, uh, die _soon_."

The emphasis on ' _soon'_ has him worrying. "What do you mean not _soon?_ "

She grimaces, the corner of her mouth tugging down, and she scratches at the inside of her wrist absently. "Well, I guess it depends on your definition of _dead._ 'Cause if you classify someone without a pulse as dead, then, man, do I have some news for you."

What the _fuck_ does that even mean?

When he asks her as much, she just gives him a pointed look, brows raised expectantly. Soul shakes his head in confusion, or maybe denial. That's ridiculous! Of course he has a heartbeat!

...right?

He pauses, holds his breath, listens hard; trying to find that telltale thump-thump-thump in his chest, the slight movement of a beating heart, but he just...can't find it. His face crumples, and he thinks he feels another wave of panic begin to sink into his bones.

Jesus, what did he get himself _into?_

The look Maka gives him is somewhere between sympathy and something bordering on impatient acceptance. As if she felt bad about the situation he found himself in, but not enough to stop herself from quietly wishing he'd get over it. Luckily, she takes pity on him, and the impatience dissipates; the sympathy overriding. "Look, um. I know you're probably freaking out right now, so just lemme go ahead and say what you're thinking." She pauses and wets her lips, shifting on the stool. Despite the uncomfort apparent in her body language, she meets his gaze head-on, green eyes unflinching. "You're a vampire." His breath catches, but she plows ahead anyway. "Believe it or not, but the fact of the matter is you just downed two-and-a-half pints of blood and these silver chains are currently burning your _very_ inhuman skin." She flicks his ankle before resting her elbows on her knees, fingers lacing together as she stares him down, the muscle in her jaw fluttering as she clenches it. "Vampires, werewolves, witches," she counts them off on her fingers, "they're all real."

Part of him wants to make some joke, deflect whatever the hell is going on here just like he does anything else that makes him uncomfortable, and a larger part of him kinda wants to just sit down a cry for his mother because there's no _fucking_ way this is happening. Instead of doing either of those things, he swallows the lump in his throat, steels himself. Maka didn't _look_ crazy, didn't have that crazy-person look in her eyes. She just looked tired, maybe a little annoyed, but something told him that her ire wasn't directed at him. He looks her over, studies her face for a moment, finds that the hard set of her jaw and the steady look she levels him with forces the air back into his lungs. "You're serious? This isn't a fucked up joke?"

"'Fraid not." She huffs a laugh, plants the palms of her hands on her knees as she pushes to her feet. She grabs a set of heavy leather gloves from the old nightstand by the head of the bed. She pauses for a second, pulling the gloves on carefully, methodically; eyeing him out of the corner of her eye as she grabs the dangling end of a silver chain. "Look...I don't want to have to leave you chained up here, but I also can't have you freaking out and attacking me or my

people."

Soul catches her meaning. Best behavior, or she's going to make good on her promise to stake him. He doesn't trust his voice not to shake, isn't even sure what to say to convey just how clearly he understands without blubbering, so he settles for just holding her gaze and nodding once.

She studies him for a moment longer, as if measuring him up, before she moves to undo the silver bindings at his wrists and ankles, wincing at the way stringy bits of skin and flesh cling to the chainlinks. Unbound and careful of his wounds–which were quickly closing, his skin knitting itself back together–he sits up, planting bare feet against the dusty wooden floor. Maka dumps the chains off In a corner, sheds the gloves, extends a calloused hand. "Welcome to the club, kid."

Turns out, Maka was actually really nice.

Well, aside from the whole bit where she let him stick his hand underneath the thick curtain she'd hung up over the tiny window, but even that was more just to let him learn for himself that sunlight wasn't a joke. He thinks that maybe she knew he needed to confirm for himself that he really was a...anyway. Besides that, she'd sat in the attic with him for almost two hours, answered as many of his questions as she could. Silver was no joke, garlic and crucifixes were a hoax, only old mirrors wouldn't show his reflection, and, honestly, she wasn't sure if he could turn into a bat or not. They'd covered all the generics, Soul yawning widely all the while. Once he'd taken a moment to collect his thoughts, maybe gearing up for another round of questioning, she'd stood up with a crack of her back and silenced him with a wave of her hand.

"Look, kid, I know you probably have a lot more questions, but you should grab a little more sleep before night fall." She hooks her foot around one of the stool's legs and slings it haphazardly to the foot of the bed, slips those heavy gloves back on and carefully drapes the chains over her arm. "I've got some stuff to take care of while there's still daylight, but I'll come back up once the sun sets, okay?" He nods faintly, watching her leave before flopping back down on the mattress. He stares up at the cobwebbed ceiling, tracing the lines in the grain of the old wood with his enhanced vision. If he listened, he could hear Maka clattering around downstairs—the scuff of her boots against the floor, the clank of dishes as they sink into a water-filled sink, the.. _beating_ of four separate hearts. There are two people other than Maka in this house, the other one outside; the one closest to Maka, their heartbeats near synched. He closes his eyes and wills himself to stop hearing _everything_ , before he loses his damned mind. Instead, he carefully lays his hand across his throat, feeling for the carnage that must've been there not long ago.

He hadn't asked Maka about it; how she found him or if she knew who did this to him. He was too afraid to hear the answer, perhaps too afraid to be met with more questions. It didn't help that his memories of the ordeal were...foggy. Muddled with fear and blood-loss. Even his other memories, the _human_ ones, were out of focus. Not that it made it hard to remember; just that he couldn't see the finer details of his mother's face, or the exact smell of his father's favored cologne. It's like he'd had a film over his senses for the past twenty-three years, and only now it had been lifted. Soul takes a deep breath, presses his fingers into the skin of his throat, half-searching for a pulse.

He didn't disbelieve Maka, or even his own experiences thus far. He just...needed an extra confirmation. That last piece of the puzzle to tell him he wasn't absolutely losing his mind. His hand stays perfectly still against the perfectly smooth skin of his neck, not so much as a scratch on the surface or a flutter beneath. He heaves a sigh and rolls over, trying his best to get some sleep; like Maka suggested.

It's just...even with his enhanced hearing, the word is a lot quieter without the beating of his own heart.

He hears Maka stomping toward the attic before she even makes it to the stairs. He's up and out of the bed inhumanly fast, slipping his hand underneath that thick curtain, breathing a sigh of relief when his skin doesn't immediately burn. He twitches it back and peers out into the night, breath catching at the millions of stars blotting the sky. It's unlike anything he's ever seen; the moon bright and waning, reflecting off the glass-like surface of the pond sitting peacefully down below, the wooded hills in the distance lit up in an eerie glow as they roll down and down and down until they spill to the edge of the pond and the yard beyond. He presses his forehead to the glass in an attempt to look closer, see more.

The clearing of Maka's throat behind him nearly makes him jump from his skin; he whirls around, winding up half-tangled in the curtain and desperately trying to keep his cool as he claws it away from his face. The fabric tears like tissue paper, scraps of it left nailed to the wall as the rest hangs in shreds from his hands. Maka merely raises a brow as he gives her an apologetic smile, carefully setting the ball of ruined curtain on a nearby tub of what looks to be Christmas decorations, as if afraid of causing more damage.

"Did I forget to mention super strength?"

"You forgot to mention super strength."

Maka sighs and turns on her heel with a jerk of her head for him to follow her. She thumps down the stairs with an old familiarity, skipping the second to last stair without breaking her stride. Soul hesitates before skipping it too, brows furrowed. "That one's broken. Been meanin' to fix it, but," she shrugs. He thinks she might've said something else, but then second he steps into the light of the hallway, he's walking with blinders on.

It's like...experiencing a whole new world.

Sure, it might just be a regular old hallway, but...there's a little hole in the wall, about waist-level, with little red fibers caught in the edges of the drywall. There are little black scuff marks streaking the golden wood floor, the majority of them leading into a room dead center of the hall. At the topmost border of the wall, where it meets the ceiling, he can see where the toffee-brown paint barely covers the old wallpaper beneath; whoever painted it unable to reach the very top. They pass by ten doors–a few mismatched, one covered in stickers and posters–before winding down the zig-zag staircase, a motley of pictures in a variety of frames littering the wall all the way down. Soul spots some old and new, some in color and others faded in black-and-white, showing everything from parties to holidays to snowball fights to swimming in the summer. They hit the bottom of the stairs, and it's then that he's assaulted by a mix of smells: something meaty, greasy, something earthy and herby, and something... _pissed off?_ That was the only way he knew how to describe it. Except, no. That's not right. Not pissed but, defensive, almost.

Soul whips around, finds a man with bright blue hair seated at the counter, a half-eaten plate of food sitting in front of him, his fork clutched in one hand, like he might use it as a weapon if given half a chance. He swallows thickly, throws a glance at Maka, hoping she might be able to save him from death by utensil. She looks between the two of them and rolls her eyes. "Christ. Okay." She plasters on a smile, holds out her hands in front of her like she's showcasing the both of them for the other. "Soul, this is Blake. Blake, this is Soul. Say 'hello'."

Soul says, "Hi." At the same time Blake says, "We've met."

Which, _startles,_ Soul, to say the least. The surprise on his face is apparent, and Blake merely stabs a chunk of potato as Maka explains softly; "He's one of the people who found you." Oh. Soul doesn't know what to say. Do you thank someone for that? For not letting you turn into a monster by yourself? Do you apologize? For taking up their time and inconveniencing them? He wants to say it's the latter, probably because anxiety, because no son of Fletcher and Marilla Evans would ever deign to apologize to anyone who didn't have a bank account the size of Spain or govern an entire country. But, before he can flounder for too long, Blake simply nods at him; a slight, acknowledging tilt of his head, and Soul can safely do the same without managing to shove his foot in his mouth.

Maka shakes her head, moves into the kitchen area without looking to see if Soul follows her. She scoops up an empty plate off the dingy table, turns and dumps it in the sink. "So, game plan," she says without looking at either of them, tidying up the kitchen in practiced movements. "Soul, I'll finish up giving you a little tour, introduce you to a couple more people, and then I figure you can get a shower and some new clothes on because, sorry, but you kinda stink." He...can't deny that. He smells like something died, which...yeah. Anyway. She glances at him as she swipes some crumbs off the counter and into her hand, pulling out a drawer with the toe of her shoe and dusting her hands off in the trash bin inside. "Sound good? After that, we'll just take whatever else comes one step at a time." He nods, and she turns her attention to Blake. "While we do that, can y'all do me a favor and get Soul a spot set up down in the basement? Last thing we need is a stray bit of sunlight sneakin' in the attic while he sleeps." Soul flinches involuntarily. Blake just grunts something unintelligible around a mouthful of food, but Maka takes it like she understands anyway. "Speaking of, where are the others?"

Blake swallows, waves his fork. "Sid took your old man and Jackie into town, said somethin' about making sure the others were okay and stayin' put." He scoops the last of his food in his mouth and slides off the stool, walking around the counter to drop his dishes in the sink. "Stein's 'round here somewhere."

"Don't talk with your mouth full." Maka says almost reflexively, and Blake swallows obediently, looking sheepish.

"Sorry. Anyway, last I saw, he went outside." He shrugs, and goes to the living room, dutifully ignoring Soul all the while, and flops on the couch. He kicks his feet up over the back and starts flicking through the channels casually, as if the tension stringing every line of his body isn't blatantly obvious. Soul knows he's watching him, even if his eyes aren't actually looking at him.

There's something _off_ about these people.

Not...not necessarily in a bad way, in fact they seem perfectly normal and nice, but there's something blanketing this entire experience. Something about them taking all of this in stride, to the point of being _prepared_ for it, that tips him off. They have to be supernatural, right? No regular human is just going to keep pure silver chains and blood bags just _lying_ around. Unless he managed to get himself into Van Helsing's great-great-grandchild's house, which, going by his luck, is perfectly possible. He _would_ be the only guy to get turned into a vampire, only to be saved and subsequently staked by some legendary hunter or some bullshit equivalent.

Luckily, before he could spiral further, Maka finishes up in her tidying and plants her hands on her hips. "Okay, so, this is pretty much it." She gestures to the room around her.

Admittedly, it's not much. At least, not by the illustrious Evans' family standards, but it's cozy. Functional. The floors are wooden and worn, creaking in places when Maka had moved around the room, and the walls are painted a light sort of olive green. The counter starts in an L-shape, a bar-space that turns and presses against the wall; a window above the sink that looks out over the yard, a glimmer of the pond off to the side and a clear view of a shed a few paces away from the porch. A foot away sits the old stove, a cast-iron skillet sitting on the backburner. Beside the stove, a door breaks up the counter space and leads out onto the wrap-around porch; then there's cluttered counter and the fridge, beside which is another door leading to what looks to be the mud room, and another that he assumes leads to the basement. All around, there are little knick-knacks and baubles, herbs and flowers hung up to dry and fresh vegetables piled in baskets or strung out over any available space.

It's clean, but not organized; controlled chaos.

The living room isn't much different; two couches are shoved nearly-together, with a small pile of bean bag chairs at one end and a pair of mismatched recliners at the other, an oversized chaise lounge sitting directly opposite and a fairly large flat screen hung catty-corner to it all. Behind the couches, the front door and a line of wooden pegs on the wall piled with jackets and coats and hats, an open archway leading to what looked to be the dining room proper. None of the furniture matched, but it looked comfortable, cozy. A room made for frequent use, for comfort, and to accommodate a lot of people. Everything about this house would send his mother into a tizzy, but Soul _loved_ it. It wasn't made to be picture perfect and ready for a photoshoot, it was a house meant to be _lived_ in; it was like nothing he's ever experienced.

"It's beautiful," he breathes without thinking, prompting a raised brow from Maka and an amused snort from Blake. He waits for the heat to rush to his face, for his ears to burn red, but it doesn't come. Still, he thinks his whole deer-in-the-headlights stare is enough to show his embarrassment.

Maka simply laughs, eyes crinkling at the corners with her smile. "It's a mess, is what it is. But, thanks." She shakes her head, like she couldn't believe him, and heads toward the front door. "Follow me, the only thing left is the property, then you can get all cleaned up and," she flaps her hand; she doesn't know where to go from there any more than he does. It's kinda comforting, knowing that they're all just making up as they go along. Maka flicks the bottom of Blake's foot as she passes, tugs open the door, and holds the screen door until Soul passes, then allows it to slam shut behind them. She clunks down the stairs, the thick sole of her boots heavy on the old wood, and he follows her dutifully.

They stop in the middle of the yard, about twenty feet from the house and the pond in either direction. "Okay, so." She claps her hands, the sound echoing across the empty grounds, interrupted only by the crickets chirping. "We have about twenty acres here, give or take, and all of it is surrounded by a barrier, so don't get any ideas." She gives him a pointed look, and he scoffs under his breath.

"First of all, where would I even go?" She shrugs, but doesn't seem fazed. "Second, what kind of _barrier?_ "

"Magic. I barely understand the details, let alone enough to explain it to you, but just know that you can't get out, and if you try, it won't be pretty." She isn't unkind, and it's not a threat; just stating a fact. Frankly, he doesn't want to know what'll happen if he tries to go out of bounds, but at the same time, he doesn't have anywhere to go, except maybe his shitty little apartment. Even then, he's not about to try to stage a jail-break just to go sit in his apartment and try to figure out this vampire shit on his own–he'd probably starve to death or wind up attacking someone, and neither option sounds particularly fun.

"Okay, sounds good." He pauses, bites his lip. It's all beautiful, for sure, and part of him just wants to take off into woods and see what all he can do. Can he punch a tree apart with his barefists? Run faster than a bullet? Is being a vampire just like the movies, or is he just a nocturnal dweeb with an even bigger sun-allergy who's permanently stuck on a liquid diet? Soul shakes himself out of his little reverie, and instead turns his attention back to Maka. "So, uh, you said you had other people for me to meet?"

Maka starts walking, the dew dappling the freshly-mown grass making the toes of her boots glisten in the moonlight, and he falls into step with her; a slight breeze ghosting down off the hills and rippling over the surface of the lake. He doesn't shiver, though he knows that the air is cold, but neither does Maka. For someone so small, he'd think she'd be shaking in her boots. She clears her throat before speaking. "Yeah. Stein is around here somewhere, and you've already met Blake, but there's more than that." She stops abruptly and looks him dead in the eye. He freezes accordingly, feels his spine try to worm its way out of his skin under the weight of her stare. "This is where my _family_ lives. I've kept them away since you've arrived, for their safety as much as for your own, but they'll be returning soon. You need to understand that, if you do _anything_ to harm _any_ of them," She steps forward until she's nearly nose-to-nose with him, making him cower, despite being at least a foot shorter than he is. Her eyes burn with a fire he's never seen before, and suddenly he's assessing her in a new light (not that he knows jack-shit about fighting, so even if she _did_ come at him, the best he could do is lay down and hope for the best). "I will tear you apart, piece by piece, with my _teeth_." Soul swallows thickly as she backs off, loosing a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. She flashes him a smile, "Understood?"

He nods frantically. "Yes, ma'am."

"Good." Above them, the sky shimmers and dances in a wave of blue sparks, like fireworks raining over a clear umbrella. Soul watches, eyes wide, knowing his heart would be pounding a million miles an hour if it could still beat, but Maka is wholly unconcerned, not even sparing a glance upwards. "Ah, that must be Sid. You'll meet him tonight, too, before you meet everyone else." She moves to continue wandering across the lawn, headed toward the dirt road snaking from the woods, but Soul latches onto her arm before she can move too far. Maka whips around so fast he's surprised she didn't hurt herself, her teeth bared like an animal. "What the _hell—_ "

He loosens his grip, just a little, but doesn't take his eyes off the woodline. "Do you hear that?"

Maka's face softens, teeth hidden behind her lips as she purses them, brows drawn together. "I told you Sid was on his way back." She says carefully, as if he hadn't been listening to her before. He shakes his head.

"No, it's not a car." His new hearing might fuck him up emotionally, but he's not stupid. It sounds like...running. Feet on the ground, digging into soft dirt. Not human, too many legs. He breathes deep, trying to see if he can smell anything, feels the action tickle something primal in the back of his mind, but there's too much for him to parse through; Maka and the lake and the house and _everything_. "It's...an animal?"

Maka seems to relax, his hand still wrapped around her bicep. "Yeah, we have those." She laughs through her nose, shakes her head. "Ain't a town for about ten miles either way; once you reach the main road, that is."

"No, Maka, it's not—" He tries to explain, tell her about this gut feeling that whatever it is, it's coming _for_ them, but before he can, it explodes out of the treeline. Huge, a brown so dark it almost looks black, and almost as tall as he is; he almost doesn't recognize it as a wolf. His heart leaps to his throat, feels his muscles come alive in the face of danger. It barrels down the yard at them, closing in quick, and when Maka doesn't move, Soul assumes she's frozen in fear.

So, he does what any good person would do. He makes a break for it, tugging Maka along after him.

Except, she doesn't budge. In fact, she digs her heels in, and just before he loses his grip on her, he feels her arm sort of... _pop_. Her pained yelp echoes across the lawn, and what happens next would've made him shit his pants if he were still human.


	4. from now on

_Chapter Four:_ **Maka**

 _Earlier that day…_

Maka shuts the attic door behind her with a soft _click_ , sighing as she heads down the hallway, silver chains jingling almost merrily as she goes. Soul was a curious one, that's for sure, and she can't help but feel a little unprepared. Don't get her wrong, she knows a good deal about vampires, but it's all in theory, not experience. She could tell him the top ten easiest ways to kill one, or how many of them lived in a hundred mile radius, but she was beginning to fear that she couldn't help him acclimatize correctly.

God, it's just like when the twins were born all over again.

She sighs, heads down the stairs. Finds Sid doing dishes and Blake studiously scrolling on his computer, the news playing softly on the tv behind him. She cuts through the kitchen and out the side door, off the porch and over to the shed to put the chains away, makes a mental note to clean them later. She glances over her shoulder as she tucks the heavy metal box back under the workbench, watches for a moment as Stein pushes the clunky old mower around the lawn.

Good. She was glad the guys were trying to retain _some_ sense of normalcy.

Maka tosses the gloves aside and dusts off her knees as she stands. Her eyes look to the peak of the house of their own volition, as if she could see right through the walls to where Soul now slept. She rubs her forehead, lamenting at the shit-show this is going to turn into soon if she doesn't get a firm grip on whatever the hell is going on around here. Shaking her head, she shuts up the shed and heads inside, doing her best to seem as business-as-usual. Blake glances up from his laptop as she enters, raising his brows a little; he can see through her facade effortlessly, knows her too well, knows that she's panicking in her own way.

She shakes her head, pulls out the stool beside him and sits herself on it. "Don't get me started." She nods at his screen, "Find anything?"

"Eh, yes and no." He turns the computer to let her see easier, and she comes face-to-face with Soul. Or, his Facebook page, at least. "He doesn't really post on here much, _but_ he's been tagged in a bunch of fancy-pants symphony events." Maka raises a brow, and Blake switches tabs. "So, I did a little digging, and it turns out his brother is some big-shot violinist, his mother is an international clarinet star, and his dad is some sort of businessman-I dunno-and _Soul_ was a rising pianist." Even Sid pauses, dishwasher half-full, his eyes wide.

They share a look. "' _Was_ ' as in, when he was younger?" Sid asks, voice carefully empty.

"Or ' _was_ ' as in before he was Changed?" Maka finishes, feeling her pulse quicken anxiously. If Soul was some up-and-coming classical music star, they were gonna be in much deeper shit than they'd anticipated.

Blake hums as he scrolls, chewing on his lip thoughtfully. "From the looks of it, all of his performances and such were when he was younger. Anything even semi-recently that mentions him are only in passing; all the focus is on his brother." Maka and Sid both relax, tension leaking from the air. One less thing to deal with. The atmosphere considerably lighter, Blake continues, shifting in his seat. "Aside from that, I found his instagram, buuuut it's private." He glances at her out the corner of his eye. "I requested to follow him."

Maka laughs, "I don't think he's gonna accept for a little while yet." Aside from the whole thing with him being a baby vampire and all that _that_ entails, she still hasn't gotten around to finding a charger for his phone. Just something else to add to her never ending to-do list, she supposed. She checks her watch and curses under her breath. "Oh shit, okay, I gotta go." She leans over the counter and snatches up her phone, hops off the barstool, and kicks it under the counter with the side of her foot.

Blake nearly falls off his chair as he whips around to watch her, "What? Where're you going?" His eyes briefly flicker the ceiling, as if what he really wanted to know is _why're you leaving us with him_?

Sid leans against the counter, arms crossed and face serious. It's in that moment that she realizes that she hasn't seen him smile in days; not since he found Soul. Her stomach twists uncomfortably. She hopes this isn't a permanent development; she hopes she didn't ruin everything. "You sure it's a good idea to leave right now?" He asks, and she feels that piece of something special that makes her alpha shift and bristle. He's not challenging her, she knows, but she still has to beat down that intrinsic part of her that awakens at the suggestion of someone questioning her. Blake looks away, the lines of his body going rigid. Sid must see the way his question sparked against the flint in her blood, and he tilts his head downward, just a little, as if to appease the beast under her skin.

The alpha quiets, but she feels herself grow nauseous. She hates those moments-as scattered as they may be. Having a vampire in the house and her entire pack staying somewhere else is undoubtedly attributing to her touchy-ness, but it still wasn't any excuse. She presses her hand to her forehead, pushes back her frizzy bangs. "Sorry, guys. I...sorry." Both of them wave her off; no harm, no foul. She sighs. "To answer your question, yes. I'm sure. I'm going to see Kid, and since I've been putting it off for the past two days...yeah, it's time."

"Why're you going to see him?" Blake asks, the disdain in his voice apparent. After all these years, he still thought the vampire was too stuck up, no matter how often Maka had tried to tell him otherwise.

" _Because_ we have an unregistered, unapproved baby vampire sleeping in our attic and as the leader of the local coven, he deserves to know." Blake tilts his head in acceptance; she had a point and he knew it. "I called him the morning y'all found him, but I wanted to talk to Soul before I went and saw him." She walks around the scattered living room furniture that cuts too close to the kitchen and counter space, lifting her jacket and purse off one of the hooks beside the front door before digging into the little bowl on the table underneath and scooping up her keys. "So, I'm gonna go see him now, and I'll be back before sundown. If, for whatever reason, I'm not back by then," she wrenches open the door, specifically giving Blake _The Look_. "Be. Nice."

Blake rolls his eyes, turns to Sid to mimik her as she turns to leave, and is promptly cuffed upside the head by his dad. "Didn't you hear her?" He asks as Blake rubs his head. "Be. Nice."

Their laughter chases her out of the house, and she pauses only long enough to wave at Stein before hopping in her truck and taking off down the road.

It's after almost an hour drive later when she's pulling into an old church parking lot, the pavement cracked and riddled with weeds. Above the door, letters that once shined gold are now faded, some missing, and instead of whatever it was named before, it now reads 'Ass Urch'. Maka slides out of her truck and tucks her hands into her pockets, casting a weary glance over her shoulder before heading inside.

The place has always given her the creeps. Not because of the people that reside inside, oh no, just that good old fashioned fear naturally instilled at the sight of an old church paired with the fact that there was nobody around for miles. She's not dumb and she's far from human, so at least the logical part of her brain knows that she'll be fine, but that scrap of human that lives in her very bones screams at her to watch her back or, better yet, go home. She pushes that nagging feeling aside as she wanders down the aisle, past the broken and crumbling pews, over the remains of what was once a stone pulpit. The whole room is bathed in shimmery, dusty colored light, the sun shining through the stained glass. It almost makes her able to block out the smell of mold and rot and death.

The latter of those scents only gets stronger as she ducks behind the giant statue of what used to be Jesus (she thinks) but is now little more than a eight foot robed body without a head. There, she kneels down and shifts aside a heavy carpet, finding the heavy lead door beneath. She has to put all of her weight behind it, but she's able to heft it open and slip inside, awkwardly maneuvering the door onto her back and shoulders all the while. It falls shut with a heavy bang behind her, but she doesn't pay it any mind as she makes her way deeper into the dark.

She almost trips down the winding set of stairs, the stairway scarcely lit and making it hard for her eyes to adjust one way or the other, but she hits the bottom without incident and heads down the long hallway. It's nothing but red carpeting and blank, black concrete walls. Classic vampire decor, though she never understood why. If the creepy abandoned Ass Urch upstairs didn't scare people away, why would a gothic hallway do the trick?

At the end of the hall, Maka comes to another set of heavy doors–though these ones are made of metal–and she raps her knuckles against it in a quick one, two, three succession. From there, it takes approximately five minutes for the little eye-slot to slide open, a pair of unnaturally blue eyes squinting suspiciously out at her. She merely raises an expective brow, the slot snaps shut, and it's quickly followed by the sound of no less than twenty locks being undone. When the door finally opens, she's greeted by none other than the Thompson sisters, Patti and Liz; the latter of the two is all long legs and dark blonde hair that easily touches her ass and cheekbones that could cut glass, while the former is almost the exact opposite; short, almost-yellow blonde hair, curvey where her sister isn't and baby fat that never seemed to have left her perpetually-rosey cheeks. Still, despite their differences, they were undoubtedly sisters; the same piercing blue eyes and tan skin, and the fact that they were both deceptively _jacked_ couldn't be a coincidence.

Maka had been trying to get them to join the pack for years.

She nods to the both of them as she steps inside, the lobby a total opposite to the hallway leading up to it; all bright lights and clean, modern lines. Potted and hanging plants decorate anywhere there's room, as if they were recreating a greenhouse in the daylight; as close to actual sunlight as they can get. A few vampires lounge about the room's many furnishings, reading or chatting or dozing like cats in the artificial sun, few of them pay the sisters any mind, but Maka apparently warrants a bit more interest. Most only cast cursory glances her way, but a select few regard her with open suspicion, one even bares his teeth. She merely smiles in return as Liz turns on her heel and starts off toward the large, ornate doors flanking the left side of the lobby, while Patti gives Maka a smile and loops her arm through Maka's, practically skipping as they follow her sister. The two always seemed like polar opposites, night and day, but she's known them long enough to know that they're much more similar than they'd want you to believe. Not to mention, they're damn near identical in a fight; deadly, precise, vicious. Patti chatters in her ear, totally at odds with her internal monologue, and she catches the weary glance Liz shoots over he shoulder before pushing through the threshold leading to Kid's personal quarters.

Despite visiting plenty of times before, Maka still can't get over how massive the space is. Kid's quarters are bigger than her pack's entire house, and she can't help but to be a little jealous. It was a ridiculous amount of space for only three people to occupy. Meanwhile, she's in the process of making room for Soul in her already cramped home; the thirteenth member to reside under her roof. Though, after this conversation, Soul could very well find himself living here instead; across the hall and through the other set of equally ornate doors, with all the other vampires currently in Kid's massive coven. She hopes for and against that outcome in equal measures.

The heels of Liz's boots clack loudly against the marble, signifying their arrival, as if Kid couldn't hear or smell them from the second Maka pulled into the parking lot. Patti disentangles herself and takes off, damn near sprinting, and her excited prattle echoes back a moment later as she runs into Kid. Liz casts another glance at Maka before branching off her own way, apparently trusting her to find her way on her own; which wasn't going to be hard, considering Kid soon after appears around one of the corners, Patti clinging firmly to his back. They talk animatedly, Patti swinging the arm not wrapped around his throat wildly enough to almost knock pictures off the walls and vases off end tables. Kid indulges her with a small smile, hands in his pockets and shoulders thrown back as if her weight was nothing to him.

When his golden eyes land on Maka, she feels gooseflesh come alive along the line of her spine and her hair stands on end. Still, she flashes him a smile, ignoring the way her bones shiver at his presence.

Patti stops mid-sentence, eyes unfocusing for a beat before she's disentangling from Kid and skipping down the same hall Liz did moments before. He doesn't pay her any mind, and instead tilts his head in greeting as he comes to a stop before Maka, a wry smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. "Alpha."

She tilts her head in turn, mirrors his smile. "Princeling."

Immediately his smile sours, a groan building in his throat. "When will you stop calling me that?" He near-whines, turning on his heel as she falls into step beside him.

Maka laughs, beats down the flicker of self-consciousness as it echoes. "Whenever your daddy stops being king, probably." He scoffs, loops his arm through hers, skin cold and hard beneath the crisp fabric of his white dress shirt. The Thompsons might not trust her wholly—at the very least, _Liz_ doesn't—but she and Kid have always been friends. Maybe it was something about being in charge, knowing the strain and the responsibility, or maybe it was just because they understood each other on some base level that was totally separate from their supernatural attributes. Whatever it was, she'd always liked the vampire, found his presence calming; a nice change of pace from the never-ending excitement she found at home. Her smile turns soft as she links her hands together, the warmth of her palms seeping into Kid's forearm. She knocks their shoulders together. "How've you been? It's been a little while since I've been out."

He sighs dramatically, ever the drama queen. "I've been well. Mostly handling the same old intra-coven politics and all that _that_ entails." He cuts a golden glance her way as he leads her to his living room. "All of which you'd know in better detail if you'd come around once in a while." He relaxes his arm, and she lets her hands drop accordingly, allowing him to gracefully drape himself over his blow-up sofa like a lady dropping onto her fainting couch. Maka can't help her laughter as she follows suit and plops down on it's matching armchair, the plastic sinking and wobbling precariously under her as she settles.

"I know, I know. I've just been busy." Kid's head lolls as he looks at her with a raised brow. "Oh, don't give me that look. Between work and the pack and the kids and now Soul…" She sighs, slumping a little, the smell of plastic engulfing her as she shifts in her seat. Saying it all out loud makes her realize just how busy she's been. Weariness settles in her bones. She shakes it off, gives Kid a smile she's sure he can see through. "I'll find some time to pencil you in, promise."

He flaps a hand at her, dismisses it entirely. For people as old and everlasting as they are, the time they spend apart is bound to end up more than they spend together. "Speaking of the kids, though, how are they? I haven't seen them since they were—oh, I don't know—five? Six?"

Maka can't help her smile, chest swelling a little with pride. "They're fourteen, now." Kid curses under his breath. "Thunder is a never-ending stream of energy, so not much as changed. She's playing a lot of sports, though, so that helps. Fire, on the other hand, is...Fire." She shrugs, she never knows how to describe him. He's just...himself. "He's a good kid, a good balance to Thunder's wide-openness. I think he said something about joining the next school play."

"You'll have to let me know. You know I'm a faithful patron of the arts." Maka snorts. Yeah, he'll come with a thousand roses and a fat stack of cash, showing off to the goddamn PTA that the twins have the _coolest_ uncle ever. She wonders if she'll be so theatrical once she hits a century, or if it's something that doesn't hit until you're well into your thousands. Especially considering his history, how neurotic he supposedly used to be, compared to the laid-back—if a little eccentric—man she knew now.

"For such a lover of the arts, you'd think you'd get a interior designer in here."

He at least has the dignity to look offended. "You mean to tell me you don't like my decor?"

Maka pinches the arm of her chair, plastic squeaking. "You have blow-up furniture from the nineties. I'm surprised there isn't a bead curtain around here somewhere."

"You haven't seen my bedroom," he says with a wink, smiling as she laughs before turning to survey the room. "What's wrong with my decorating?"

Maka doesn't even know where to begin. Compared to the sleek design of the lobby and the stylish-yet-muted decor in the hallway, his living room was...a mess. Not dirty, not unorganized–actually quite symmetrical. Like every time period he'd ever lived through threw-up in here. When she tells him as much, he scoffs. What does a girl from this little podunk know about _design?_ "It's not about design," she says, "but you have blow-up furniture with a big ass flat screen over here, swords from medieval england hanging on the wall over there, and, if I'm not mistaken, that's a solid gold chaise lounge from the Byzantine empire back there." She points over his shoulder where, sure enough, a solid gold chaise lounge sits beneath a faux window, a full suit of mongolian armor at it's head and a marble statue that she was half-convinced that he had commissioned from Michelangelo himself at the foot. A stack of books sits in the middle, and she's sure half of them are original prints off the presses back when the damn thing was made.

Kid tilts his head, suddenly refusing to acknowledge the ridiculous opulence he's accumulated. Instead, he shifts until he's sitting properly, crosses one knee of the other. "When you've lived as long as I have you... _collect_ a few things," he gestures about the room, "these are just some of my favorites." She raises a brow and pinches the arm of her chair again, as if in question, and he flaps his hand at her to make her stop. " _I_ find them charming. It was better when _everyone_ found them so, but now?" He sighs, dusts invisible dirt from his knee. "My favorite fads never last long."

Maka laughs, nods her head in agreement. "Alright, I see what you mean." She sighs herself, her mouth screwing to the side in thought. She tilts her head back, plastic chair squeaking against the skin of her neck, stares at the ceiling. "I think I miss the fashion trends the most."

"Oh, god." He makes a noise like a cat hacking up a hairball. "Okay, that's enough."

"What?"

He points an accusatory finger at her, rings glinting in the light of the chandelier. "I know you, and I know that look, and I know for a _fact_ that you're not thinking of any of the good styles. You're thinking of flower-embroidered bell-bottoms and- and plaid-everything."

"Hey! Those were all the rage back in the day!"

"I know, and I'm sorry you were in your prime during some of the worst fashion revolutions I've ever seen." Maka sputters some offended squawks, but Kid pays her no mind. "Luckily for you, you got Changed. Now, you get to stay in your prime forever, see the error in your ways, and make up for it."

"Oh, whatever. I'd bet you everything I own that you wore some _terrible_ outfits in your time." She makes a move as if she was getting up, brows raised expectantly. "If you horde all this junk, what would I find if I looked in your closet?"

Kid darts forward, so fast even her supernatural eyesight could barely track him, and he presses her back into the smelly chemicals of the pvc, his hands on her shoulders. "Okay, okay. Point taken." She crows with laughter as he releases her and perches on the edge of the glass coffee table. He laces his fingers together, lets them rest between his knees. His unnatural stillness-the same stillness _all_ vampires have-always throws her through a loop. There's no rise-and-fall of his chest, no slight shift of his muscles or that distracted sort of energy that thrives under the skin of living things. Just hard, still, unyielding marble. The look he gives her causes her to settle, makes the hair on the back of her neck prickle as she sits up straight. He wets his lips, gold eyes shining brilliantly. "I think it's time we talk about our new...problem. It'll be dark soon and, unlike some people, I need to grab some sleep before then." She rolls her eyes, but nods for him to continue. "So, just tell me everything. From beginning to end, everything you know."

So, she does. From Sid having a bad feeling, to him and Blake finding Soul on the edge of their property, to pouring the blood down his throat, all the way up to the point when he woke up and bombarded her with questions. She shifts in her seat, crosses one jean-clad knee over the other, tucking one of her hands underneath her thigh. "As far as I know, he's sleeping now. I plan to be back by dark; I don't want the boys to scare him."

Kid laughs through his nose, an absent sort of sound as he mulls over what she's said. "Has he said anything about who attacked him? Any idea of who it could be?"

Maka shakes her head, chews on the skin of her lip absently. It was driving her crazy trying to figure out how this sort of thing happened, but she couldn't imagine what Kid must be thinking. The system created to prevent this sort of thing was his own invention, something he put in motion a couple hundred years ago to make sure their secret didn't get out and covens didn't spiral out of control. There are meticulous hoops to jump through, forms that need filled and filed. A vampire isn't to be Made without the explicit consent of the head of the local coven, and even then, the head usually has to go higher up the hierarchy, either pass the request through Kid or his father. And that's just for vampires that're part of a coven; let alone the nomads still out there. Violating these rules are punishable by death, and that's one of the _better_ sentencings. There's unofficial wiggle room thanks to Kid-he's not heartless-but she highly doubts that Soul's Maker will fall into Kid's good graces. "No. I didn't ask during our little Q&A. I figure that's the kind of thing that he'll bring up on his own, or at the very least, I'll ask him about after knowing him for longer than twenty-four hours."

"I know you want to give him a little time to acclimatize, but time really isn't on our side." They both see the irony, but what little humor they had has leaked from their bones. They both know that there's something off about the whole ordeal. Even if it was a well-meaning vampire, someone who couldn't get their request approved or didn't know about the process to begin with, it doesn't add up. Why risk Turning Soul, only to dump him less than a mile outside wolf territory? Why tear his throat open _after_ the fact? Maka switches from chewing on her lip to her nails, a nasty habit that makes Kid's eye twitch once, but he doesn't comment, knows the thoughts racing through her mind; they always thought alike. "The sooner we know what _he_ knows, the sooner we can put this to rest."

He pats her knee reassuringly, giving her a small smile as she puts her hand over his and squeezes once. First, he rises-a clear dismissal, they didn't have much to go on and, like he said, he still needed sleep-and she follows suit with a crack of her knees that makes them both wince. Together, they make their way down the hall, the echoing of their shoes on the marble deafening in the silence. She can't help but feel like they're missing something important and blatantly obvious. They stop before that big ornate door at the end of the hall, and she crosses her arms over her chest, feels the Thompson's eyes on her even though she can't see them. She purses her lips, flips back and forth between voicing her question aloud, afraid of the prying ears in the lobby and beyond. Kid merely cocks a brow, knows the look on her face, and waits. She blows a soft sigh through her nose, her jaw working, like she had to chew up her words before spitting them. "Do you think...do you think it could've been one of your own?"

Kid blinks in surprise, and the already straight line of his spine somehow gets straighter. He runs his tongue along the inside of his teeth. "I can't rule it out." She knows he doesn't like the idea, and the tightness of his voice tells her that he'd much rather rule it out entirely and maybe even snap some insult, but he's nothing if not practical to a fault. She holds his stare, the liquid steel in her spine turning solid the moment she feels the silent challenge in the air. Twin growls slip through the air, shattering the silence neat as porcelain on tempered glass.

Maka and Kid both look to the source, find the sisters haunched in the doorway, eyes glowing and fingers turned to claws, sharp teeth bared. Kid holds out a hand at the same time Maka lets her own growl tear through the hall, satisfaction settling in her blood as they both flinch. They might be packless, but they can't deny her power, her authority. They're all just as much animal as they are human, but the thing about humans is that they're just glorified animals. There's more than what makes them wolves that makes the sisters cower at her power. It's primal, soaked into their DNA. The wolf beneath her skin shifts in excitement, ready to tear it's way free and into those girls.

Kid must sense it just as the thought hits her, because his hand is on her jaw in an iron grip. The sisters back off-Maka only knows because their scent is no longer assaulting her senses-but she still growls at Kid, bones shaking at the _audacity._ She's half-a-second away from tearing free of her skin and _eating_ his unbeating heart, but he jerks her chin up and forces her to meet his eyes; no longer just plain gold, but double-irised in colors that don't exist. The fight leaks from her being immediately, teeth and claws and anger withdrawing to the very core of her, as if afraid he might reach out and pluck them from her grasp if they didn't hide.

Maka is very forcibly reminded in that moment that _vampire_ is too simple of a word for what Mortimer Kidman is.

He's everlasting, undying. He is beginning and end and he can rip the very world from beneath her feet and never see a single repercussion for it.

She forces petrified muscles to work as she swallows, and she very nearly goes limp in his grasp, just to make sure he knows she's backed down for good. He releases her, blinks once and the infinite infinities that live inside him are hidden by pretty gold once more. Maka wants to rub her chin, refuses to give him the satisfaction, feels shame spread through her chest like liquid fire. Instead, she straightens her spine, tidies her clothes, and turns on her heel. She stops, only for a moment, as her hand rests on the doorknob, and she casts a glance over her shoulder that doesn't quite reach Kid's face. They were friends, yes, but that didn't mean they could ignore what they were, or that their responsibilities could put them at odds with one another. "I'll be in touch. Let me know when you figure out what to do next."

The lobby is empty, utterly deserted. Whether it's because of the outburst in Kid's quarters or because they had to go get ready for nightfall, she wasn't sure. She _also_ wasn't sure why she's been so irritable, so...loose cannon, ready to fire. Maka was never one to let her instincts get the better of her, never one to let the animal that lived beneath her skin override the logical, _rational_ human that she was. If it were one outburst, she might've written off, attributed it to the upcoming full moon or the stress of adopting a vampire or, or _something_. But two? Over minor infractions, the slightest grating against her nerves? No, something more was off.

And she was going to find out what.

 _Now…_

It all happens so fast. First, she's just standing in her yard, minding her own business and trying to talk Soul's skittish, city-slicker ass down from having a panic attack over hearing...what? A raccoon in the woods? A coyote? The last thing she needed was for him to freak out over every animal he hears because, boy howdy, is he going to have a _long_ eternity; especially if he was going to be spending any significant amount of time with them. And that's when it hits her.

 _She never told him they were wolves._

Then, that's the exact point that Harvar- _Harvar,_ who should _not_ , in fact, be barreling down on her at full speed and _should_ , in fact, be in town at Kim's apartment with the rest of their pack-attempts to run them over and Soul takes off because what _else_ do you do when a wolf the size of a small horse charges at you, hell bent on mowing you over? Good samaritan that he is, he tries to take her with him, but when instinct overrides and she digs her heels in and her shoulder gives way under his fancy new super-strength with a sickening _pop_ , well, to say shit hits the fan might be a bit of an understatement.

From that point on, it's a domino effect.

She can't help the pained yelp that escapes her as her arm goes saggy and bone juts unnaturally from its socket. She's immediately hit with the realization that it was a bad idea to let them know she was hurt as the world crawls to a halt. She whips the hand of her good arm out and Harvar stops himself so forcefully that his momentum almost sends him hurling ass over teakettle, just as Stein comes barreling out of the woods on the other side of the property; startling Soul and causing him to trip over his own feet in his hurry to reverse his own supernaturally-enhanced speed. And, as if that wasn't enough, Blake nearly explodes out of the house, screen door literally flying off the hinges as he leaps off the porch with murder in his eyes.

She's not quite sure how she manages it, making them all stop in their tracks the way that they do. If not for the fact that she was alpha, she knows her boys wouldn't have listened to a word she'd said; too caught up in their own little world full of protective instincts and a strict "act first, ask later" policy.

"Woah, woah, woah!" She yells, voice echoing, trying not to wince at the way her bones grind and bark in pain under skin at the slightest shift. Harvar and Stein both bare their teeth and snarl, hackles raised in an attempt to make them seem impossibly bigger; Blake lets out a growl of his own, skin roiling like angry waves as he holds back his Shift; Soul scrambles backwards in the dirt, heels and hand tearing at the grass until he's practically pressed against her legs. She whips an accusatory finger at Blake, "Knock that shit off right now and if you ruin that shirt I'll tear you a new asshole." She swings around, points at Harvar. "You! Put your teeth away or you're next on my shit list _and don't even get me started on how you're not supposed to be here._ " Stein, however, she barely gives more than a glance. She shakes her head, looks more disappointed and maybe even a little exasperated than anything else. " _You_ were supposed to be inside, helping Blake. Take a break."

When none of them move, she bares her own teeth, grunts in frustration. "Oh for the love of-Get your asses in the house _now."_ She leaves no room for argument. More than a simple "i'm the alpha" it's an "I'm The Goddamn Alpha, Do As I Say Or I'll Eat Your Face". Almost mechanically, Blake backs down, turns on his heel, and strides into the house; still fuming, but at least listening to what she says. Stein lumbers to the porch before Shifting back with a chorus of cracking bones and an increasingly human groan, until he's butt-naked and climbing the stairs with a hand on his lower back as he follows Blake inside. Harvar moves to follow, but she rounds on him with a gleam in her eye that says she'll kick his ass before he can even _think_ about it. Soul wisely stays on the ground, refusing to look anyone in the eye, _especially_ after seeing a strange man's ass after almost definitely getting eaten...by said man.

Maka sighs. This is not at all how she expected this night to go, but, hey, when has any part of her life ever once went the way she expected it to? Why start now?

Might as well make it weirder.

"Soul? I'm gonna need you to give me your pants."

It takes him a moment to process, then he's looking up at her with those creepy red eyes that shine in the moonlight as he asks a very bewildered, "What?"

"Soul, I'm gonna need you to give me your pants, because I'm gonna have Harvar here change back, fix my arm, and apologize for scaring you. And I need your pants because I don't think you want him to do all of that with his dick out."

He casts a glance at Harvar, who's still very much a giant wolf, before deciding that she's right and scrambling to his feet, his belt clinking too loudly in the quiet. Soon, she has his dirty pants in her good hand, and she holds them out to Harvar wordlessly. Soul pointedly watches his toes as Harvar shifts back and she has to hold in a laugh despite herself. Harvar stands tall, back cracking as he straightens, but being human doesn't make him any less menacing, she realizes a little too late.

Wordlessly, though without taking his eyes off Soul, he reaches for her arm. She turns, winces as his palm cups the ball of her arm, and she can hear the silent countdown before he wrenches her arm back in it's socket with a sickening, wet sort of _pop_. Luckily, she has the mind to hold back the pained noise she wants to make, and instead only sighs in relief as she testingly rotates her arm. Supernatural healing will take care of the soreness in a couple minutes. Good. Better. Now...the second she locks eyes with him, Harvar gives her a pleading look, one that begged her to let him rip Soul to pieces instead, until she raises her brows, taps her foot. _Waiting_.

Harvar sighs exaggeratedly, levels Soul with a look that makes him flinch, and says, "I'm sorry for scaring you." He immediately turns his attention back to Maka, and she waves him off, knowing it's as good as she's gonna get at the moment.

Instead, she busys herself with her current pet project, and realizes he looks much smaller and pathetic standing in the moonlight in only a tattered and dirty band shirt and his underwear. With Harvar a safe distance away, he straightens and manages to look her in the eye, opening his mouth to undoubtedly apologize, but she holds up her hand to stop him. "Don't even worry about it." The look on his face tells her he's going to do nothing else, and the watery sort of glint in his eyes makes her skin crawl with the unsaid apology. To avoid any more awkwardness, she grabs him by the elbow and steers him toward the house, shoots a glare at Harvar as he moves to follow. "Alright, so, I'm gonna have Blake set you up with some clothes so you can take a shower. Sound good?"

Something in Soul seems to relax as they reach the porch, his shoulders slumping. "Yeah. Okay. I'm probably smelling pretty ripe, huh?" She playfully wrinkles her nose, smiling when he laughs. There are grooves gouged into the supple old wood of the porch where the screen door hit it, the thing now hanging at an angle off the edge of the porch, teetering at every slight shift of the wind. Soul eyes the busted hinges warily, and she watches him instead of reaching for the door, allowing him to take his time before facing her family. "Do you think they'll kill me as soon as I open the door?" He whispers, as if that could keep them from hearing him.

She whispers back, but she can't help the way the humor floods her veins and makes her skin prickle; like she was in on a joke that he simply wasn't. "I think you'll be fine. They're not gonna hurt _you_ , because I'll hurt _them_." She says it more for them, Blake and Stein, but it seems to comfort Soul all the same. She allows him to do the honors of pushing open the door and heading inside, and he makes it all of five steps before his brain catches up with his body, and he realizes that he's-quite literally-walking into the wolf's den. She leans in the doorway and snatches up the handle before it can bang back against the wall behind it, flashing a smile to her boys sitting moodily in the living room. At least Stein put some pants on. "Blake, you heard me?" He doesn't look her way- _childish_ -but he nods once, and that's enough for her. "Good. Soul, bathroom's up the stairs, fourth door on the left. Use whatever you need, towels are under the sink." She goes to leave, almost has the door shut, but busts back in last second. "Oh! And, the plumbing's old and sucky, so if the shower head starts to whine, pull up on the diverter and give it a wiggle until it stops." She mimes wiggling the little knob helpfully, and then finally ducks out the door, leaving them to their own devices. She's at least semi-confident that they can survive about twenty-or-so minutes without her watching their every move.

That taken care of, she bounds down off the porch and across the lawn, meets Harvar down by the edge of the pond. He watches the water ripple, and he shifts from foot to foot as she crosses her arms and simply stares at him. Unluckily for her, he's the most stubborn of them all, second only to her, and she's had much too long a day to deal with this waiting game. "What the fuck are you doing here?" She snaps, once the silence becomes too much for her, craning her neck to force him to look her in the eye. "You were supposed to stay with the _pack_."

"And leave you with a vampire? By yourself?" Dark brown eyes, so dark they're almost black, meet hers. They seem darker in the night, the moonlight catching the curious sheen lining them. "We _fought_ over who would come home, Mak. I had to argue with them for two hours to convince them they couldn't all come, and the only reason I came alone is because I snuck out when Sid got there!" He throws his hands up, exasperated.

There's a lot for her to unpack there, so she just starts at the beginning. "First of all, I wasn't by myself. I had Blake and Sid and Stein here to help me, if I needed it, _which_ I didn't. I'm a little insulted you think I can't take a baby on my own." He shoots her a glare and she concedes with a tilt of her head. "Okay, I'm sorry. I know you guys were worried, and I should've worked harder to keep y'all in the loop. I...I just thought it was best to keep you guys...separate, from this. Until I figured out what the fuck is going on."

"How's that going?"

She laughs humorlessly, flaps her hand over her shoulder, gesturing at the whole mess she'd just cleaned up. "What do you think?" The broken screen door finally loses balance and clatters off the porch noisily, almost as if in response. Maka buries her face in her hands, shoulders shaking that might be laughter or sobs or maybe a little bit of both, and Harvar takes the chance to wrap his arm around her shoulders and pull her into him, his own shoulders shifting a little as he settles contentedly. She slips her arms around his bare torso, leaning her forehead against the ball of his shoulder, eyes closing. He presses his nose to her hair. "I'm sorry."

"Me, too."

They stay like that for a long moment, long enough for the quiet to resettle and the crickets and frogs to start their chorus again. Then, he flexes his arm a little to get her attention, and says softly, "Hey, you wanna go for a run?"

"Oh my _god, yes!"_ She throws her head back as she agrees, eagerly disentangling herself before whipping off her shirt. She goes for the button on her jeans, kicking off her boots, but she stops just as fast, eyes wide. "Fuck , what about the others? I can't-"

"They'll be _fine_." He forces her to meet his eyes, gives her a smile he knows she can't refuse. "Twenty minutes. Tops."

She shakes her head, but slings her remaining boot off and shimmies out of her jeans anyway. "First one to the woodline wins!" She takes off at a sprint in nothing but her underwear, laughing as she hears Harvar nearly trip over the skinny jeans clinging to his calves. Halfway there, she tears free of her skin, the _literal_ tearing of fabric static in the back of her mind as her paws hit the ground thunderously. Wind whistling through her fur, senses heightened and her heart thrumming in like a war drum; behind her, she hears Harvar join her, feels his stream of consciousness slip into her mind, soft and easy as his hand slipping into her own.

He accuses her of cheating, but it doesn't matter as he falls into step beside her, tearing their way through the woods like a natural disaster set free.


	5. the violet hour

_Chapter Five:_ **Soul**

The next couple of days, er, _nights,_ pass by in a bit of a blur.

The fact that he's been able to avoid being torn apart by Maka's pack is nothing short of a miracle, all that's considering, but he still can't help but feel like the other shoe has yet to drop. Like things have gone just a bit _too_ smoothly.

He's met Stein and Sid, properly, and while the former is playfully unsettling–like he knows his scars and demeanor and general appearance are spooky, and uses it to his advantage–the latter merely gives off a dad-vibe, almost. Or, at least, what Soul _thinks_ a normal dad would give off. (Fletcher Evans was a _father,_ never a _dad_.) He's met Harvar, too, though he still has the distinct air about him that if Soul looked in his direction too long, he just might steal his kneecaps. As for Blake, however, he wasn't that bad. He'd gotten over his protective hostility rather quickly, and he's slowly but surely teaching Soul his way around some of his favorite card games.

Maka, however, was still his favorite. Some might say it'd be too soon to latch on–especially with how uncertain his future seems at the moment–paired with the fact that he has yet to meet the rest of her fabled pack, but what could he say? She was nice and helpful and almost doted on him, fretted like a mother hen, despite almost every having to be the same age as him. She made sure the others were civil and she'd sat through his endless questioning—though she _refuses_ to tell him if Mothman is real or not; claiming it's a "locals only" secret—and, well, he'd like to consider her his friend. If not now, then maybe someday.

If only she'd loosen up, he feels she'd be less...intimidating. Lose that air of authority. It ages her and makes her slow to smile and _stressed;_ something he's beginning to see that she often is. It makes it hard for him to get a good read on her, if he were being honest. He might be new to the whole supernatural thing, but he doubts that her pack or family or _whatever_ it is would have wound up as tightly bonded as they are if she was this...walking-talking embodiment of imposing intensity. It's also likely that the reason she's so tightly wound is because the pack was to be coming home tonight. Seeing that she'd decided that he was as settled as he was going to get, and that her family should be allowed to come back to their own home after almost a full week of staying away.

The cocktail of anticipation and fear tied his stomach into knots—a surprising development, considering those muscles are presumably petrified or otherwise dead now, but then again, it could just be in his head and what does he know anyway—and he can barely sleep. He spends most of the day tossing and turning in the basement, the dark and the dank doing little to soothe his fried nerves, and doing even less to block the sound of their arrival. The idea of sleep all but evaporates the second their vehicles thunder down the lane, sending vibrations through the earth the closer they draw near, the concrete walls of the cellar aiding only in reverberating the noise against his skull.

He lay still in his bed as they approach, locks his muscles as people begin clamoring out of the parked cars. He counts eight newcomers in all, hears the differences in their respective gaits as they walk about, the differences in their heartbeats. Maka and the others, the ones he's already met, are as familiar to him as...well, not his own heartbeat, not anymore, but you get the idea. He checks his phone (that Maka had graciously loaned him a charger for), checking the time. He still had a good five hours till sundown, at least, so he could avoid the impending introductions for a little while.

Still, instead of sleeping, he listens.

All the new perks that come with being a vampire-the hearing and the sight and the strength-it's like having a new toy, and he can't stop himself from playing with them. He can't see them, not down here, and the whole scent-thing still confuses him. Maka said it'll get easier to discern all the mixing smells in time, but for now it's just a big melting pot of...he doesn't even know what. It's kinda like smelling every candle in the aisle until you go nose-blind. So, instead he listens to their individual footfalls, the rise and fall of their voices. He tries to match them to the pictures he saw upstairs. The one who's voice is high and cheery, who sits close to the uneven thump of Stein's heart must be...the blonde? She was the only one he'd taken pictures with alone, outside the group as a whole. Well, other than a few scattered ones with Maka, and the man he had assumed was her father-he had the same eyes as impossibly green as her own. He thinks one of them was even a wedding photo, though it was in black-and-white, fraying at the edges even from within the frame. She sounds nice, and she laughs often.

There's the rapid fall of running feet, pounding up the stairs, laughter streaming behind them like a kite in the wind. That must be the twins, obviously older than the babies in the photo taking a bath in the sink. Another's heartbeat crackles like there's fire in their veins, a strange sound that he lingers over longer than he does the others, and he can't even begin to place it to a face. The one with the voice that has a strange gravel to it, a buried accent, sits near Sid's now-familiar vibe, and he attaches it to the woman in the pictures with him and Blake; long dreaded hair-or maybe it was braided? He didn't have time to ogle the pictures, maybe he'll do it tonight after everyone's asleep-eyes a bright, unsettling blue. She'd had a nice smile.

He lays there for awhile longer, almost turning his eavesdropping into a game; committing their different sounds and rhythm to memory, hoping to match them to the people once the sun goes down and he can go upstairs.

Somewhere along the way, he falls asleep counting heartbeats.

He awakes to Maka's hand on his shoulder, his cold skin greedily leaching the warmth from her palm. She gives him a soft smile, blonde hair glowing gold from the light leaking from the kitchen upstairs, flowing in from the open door at the top of the stairs, and she presses a warm bag of blood into his hand as he sits up, the springs in his mattress squeaking noisily. She perches on the edge of the bed as he sinks his teeth into it, and he's suddenly struck by the total silence upstairs. "I figured I'd let you eat before you meet everyone." She says, and he notices the relaxed line of her shoulders, the lines of stress that usually creased her face nearly erased. So he was right, then. She really _was_ wound up about not having her pack close by.

"Worried I'd eat them all?" He jokes, though his smile surely doesn't reach his eyes. She gives him a disapproving look, a slight shake of her head, but doesn't deign to give him a reply. He sucks down his breakfast with a little more vigor than usual, excited and anxious in equal measure to meet the people hiding somewhere above ground. Once it's empty, he pinches the corner of the plastic between thumb and forefinger, rolling it back and forth, refusing to meet Maka's questioning stare. "What're they like?"

Her brows shoot up in surprise, but she quickly quirks her mouth to the side as she thinks. "Uh, they're...different." He barks a laugh, and huffs a soft one of her own, but she's shaking her head. "I'm serious! I don't think I could shove them all in a single category if I tried." She nudges him with her knee, "I think you'll like 'em anyway. You've been getting along with the boys alright, and they're the worst of the bunch."

"I don't know if that makes me feel better or worse." Maka crows with laughter, face glowing with some kind of inner light or something equally cheesy, and, for the thousandth time since he's been turned, he's silently glad he can't blush anymore. Still, she somehow manages to pick up on his nervousness (and thankfully _not_ his budding crush) and she plucks the empty bag from his hand, hauling him up from the bed with a hand on his elbow. He follows her dutifully up the stairs, hovering awkwardly in the kitchen as she throws out the bag and ducks into the fridge, popping back out with an armload of various drinks. He raises a brow, but she simply shoulders open the screen door by the counter and disappears into the night, not looking behind her to make sure he follows; knowing he'll be like a puppy on her heels the whole way.

Out in the yard, maybe ten feet from the lake, sits a homemade fire pit, surrounded by cinder blocks stacked three rows high, a roaring fire nestled in the center. Stein pokes at it with a stick absently, a blonde woman sitting at his side with her feet in his lap, her conversation with some woman with pink hair trailing off as he and Maka approach. Maka promptly starts passing out drinks, handing off different colored sports drinks to the set of twins sitting at beside Blake and some other man with a guitar in his lap; they secretly trade drinks once Maka moves on. Drinks passed out, she drops down on a smooth log, catching a spot in between the pink-haired girl and Harvar, leaving Soul with the distinct feeling of being in the spotlight. She pops the tab on her drink and takes a sip, acting like she totally forgot he was there when they make eye contact over the rim of her can.

"Oh! Everyone, this is Soul. Soul, this is everyone." Everyone gives a half-assed wave, and Maka takes the liberty of going around the circle and introducing everyone. Marie and Stein (he was right!), Nygus and Sid (two for two!), her dad, Spirit, Kilik and his kids, Thunder and Fire, Blake, Harvar, Kim and Jackie (oh, she's the one with that strange crackling heartbeat). Introductions out of the way, Jackie-whose laying balanced on the log, legs stretched across Kim's lap and feet tapping along to the rhythm of the guitar that Kilik goes back to aimlessly strumming-reaches out, awkwardly wobbling to keep her balance, and whips out a fold-out lawn chair, haphazardly tossing it his way. Luckily for him, his supernatural reflexes kick in and he catches it easily.

Huh. Well, that was surprisingly little fanfare.

He awkwardly takes a seat, the heat of the fire feeling odd against the ice of his skin. Slowly, they begin to talk amongst themselves again, returning to their world before Soul was in it. After a couple of long minutes in which no one talks to him (but a few of them, namely the twins, keep shooting him odd looks) he lets himself focus on the one thing he was good at: music. He slowly gets into the flow of the music, smiles despite himself when it morphs into a bawdy rendition of Country Roads, the pack breaking into racious laughter as they sing along. Somewhere along the way, Soul watches in abject horror as Jackie reaches out toward the fire, fingers mere inches from the flame, and... _pulls_ the flame into her hand, rolling it into a ball in her palm. She whistles, catching Fire's attention, and tosses the ball at him. Soul lets out a choked off cry, but the ball of fire is landing in the boy's hands before he can even get off his ass, everyone turning to give him a strange look, like _he_ was the weird one for freaking out a little over a little casual pyromancy.

"Oh, shit. Yeah, uh, Soul? Jackie knows fire magic and Fire is an earth shamen. They can kinda...do that."

He settles back down in his seat with a flustered huff, runs a hand through his hair. "Yeah. Yeah, they sure can." Fire tosses the back back and forth between his hands, giving him a silent raised brow, before throwing it back to Jackie, who lets the flame unravel and flit back to its source.

"Good job, bud. You're getting better." Jackie says with a small nod, raising her glass in a salute.

Marie turns and gives him a sympathetic smile. "Don't mind them. Jackie just wanted to show off, since we're all pretty much used to her tricks."

"Not tricks," Jackie intones, humor in her voice, like it was a joke used constantly amongst their group.

Marie shakes her head, but still smiles all the same. Soul can't help but to like her already. She was like the human embodiment of a sunflower. He gives her a smile in return, and she blinks in surprise at his teeth, but quickly smothers it beneath another grin. Thunder, however, leaps to her feet and quickly skirts the fire, getting much too close to Soul's face for comfort as she tries to peer in his mouth. A few strands of hair have strayed from her braided mohawk, and she blows them out of her eyes impatiently. "Whoa, cool! Can I see your teeth?"

"Thunder," Kilik and Maka both chastise at the same time, but Soul waves them off, diligently baring his teeth for her. He's spent his life being ogled for his teeth, why stop now? Especially if it can earn him some brownie points with Maka's...kids? He doesn't know for sure, but he still doesn't think it'd _hurt_ to have the kid like him.

"Wooooooooah, that's so _sick._ " She holds out a finger. "Can I poke one?" He laughs through his nose and opens his jaw, giving her ample space to carefully prick the pad of her finger against one of his teeth. "Oh! I didn't expect 'em to be so sharp!" She laughs happily, pulling her finger from his mouth. "I didn't know vampires got all of their teeth so sharp. I thought it was just the two, y'know?" She mimes having pointed eye teeth with her fingers, drawing back her upper lip from her teeth to help the visual.

Soul laughs, especially as Maka buries her face in her hands with a groan. "I wouldn't know, kid. My teeth were like this before I was, uh, Changed."

"Forreal?" She's practically vibrating with her enthusiasm. "That's so cool! Oh!" She whips around, her long braid brushing Soul's stomach as she turns. "Ma, can Soul come to my game under the lights? The other girls would _love_ this!"

"Uh," she eloquently drawls, echoed only by Soul's hesitant "er", feeling the mood around the fire drastically shift. Maka shares a look with Kilik, very clearly sharing a whole conversation without saying a word. "We'll see, okay? It's in a week, right?" Thunder nods, and so does Maka. "Okay, well, we'll see how things go, and if it's all good, Soul can go if he wants, 'kay?"

Thunder clearly takes this as good as she's gonna get and lets it drop, instead turning her attention back to Soul to pepper him with questions, all of which he answers with little hesitation since he's kinda figured, whats it matter? He's an immortal being, or whatever, and the life he knew before is probably effectively over. Might as well spill his guts to a fourteen year old. And, of course, he knows the rest of the pack tentatively listens in on the conversation. Eventually, some of them even start jumping in with questions of their own, until it turns into less of an interrogation and more of just...a casual get-together. Just a bunch of friends sitting around the fire bullshitting and playing music-Blake even passes off his guitar at one point and goads Soul into playing wonderwall (which, by the way, he nails)-and Soul... _loves_ it.

It's probably the best time he's ever had, and before he knows it, the sky soon begins to lighten.

Kilik had moved to sitting on the ground at some point, allowing the twins to curl up against his sides and fall asleep, too nosey to go back to the house to crawl in bed, and Stein and Sid had transformed to go run perimeter before coming back and curling around their respective wives to ward off the late-night chill. Kim, as it turns out, _wasn't_ a part of the pack. She _was_ , however, a fucking _witch,_ with an apartment in town (where this fabled "town" was, he had no clue; was there just the one? Was it the one he had moved to before all of this? He felt it was too late to ask so, well, he didn't) and she had left sometime in the early hours of the morning, dropping a kiss to Jackie's forehead before taking off and peeling out the driveway in some little powder blue monstrosity.

The singing and the music had steadily gone in and out of playing, depending on the flow of conversation and whether or not someone felt like playing. Truthfully, once Blake had handed him the guitar, Soul didn't want to put it down. It was the first thing to make him feel grounded and normal in days, and he wasn't keen on giving up that stability again so soon. However, once the sun begins to rub the sleep from it's eyes and prepares to crawl over the mountains and hills, he passes it back to an oddly bright-eyed Blake and bids everyone a goodnight (good day?) and heads off back inside to the safety of the basement.

For once, he falls asleep without a problem, lulled to sleep by the echoing memory of the music.


	6. fire in the water

_Chapter Six:_ **Maka**

After Soul heads off to bed, she and the others sit in the relative silence of early morning, dozing where they sit, the fire low as Jackie steadily starts to nod off. Maka sits slumped against Harvar's side, the both of them having slipped off the log and onto the ground once the felling of Jackie's cold-ass feet against her thigh became too much. Maka wants to let herself fall asleep, sinks further into Harvar's inviting warmth, but something just...doesn't feel right. She sits up, pushing away the warm unconsciousness tugging at her mind as she rolls to her feet, knees and hips popping loudly from sitting for so long. Harvar places his hand against her thigh, right above her knee, almost in support. She doesn't know if he feels the same... _offness_ she does, but she appreciates it all the same. Sid lifts his head, hackles raising and his lips drawing back from his teeth. The hair on the back of her neck stands on end, every sense she possesses on high-alert and the woods around them fall silent as the grave, the frogs and birds quieting. Jackie wordlessly holds out a hand to the fire and smothers the fire, the crackling of the wood stopping on a dime as her magic washes over it. Blake and Kilik both set their guitars on the grass behind them, rolling to the balls of their feet. It's not that there's anything to hear, only the _absence_ of sound, the distinct _lack_ of anything.

These woods are never quiet.

They all stay frozen like that, almost long enough for Maka to begin to second guess that intrinsic gut-feeling, but the second she entertains the thought, _they_ burst from the treeline. A hoard of vampires-all fairly new, if the scent of fresh death is anything to go by-fall down upon the yard like a wave, their skin blistering in the birthing rays of sunlight, snarling like feral animals. A matching wave breaks through on the opposite side, slightly smaller in numbers though no less savage. Maka's instincts kick into overdrive, and luckily for her, she doesn't need to speak for the others to leap into action. The air fills with the sound of tearing clothes as her pack shifts, one by one, turning to wolves to capitalize on their strength, their power. They were going to need it to survive this. She can't decide if she's glad Soul is inside or not. Unimportant. Intead, she grabs the twins by their shoulders and forces them to look at her, away from their family as they burst forth to meet the rushing tide.

Their eyes are wide and dilated in fear.

"Guys, I need you to listen to me and listen good." The words are rushed, maybe a little jumbled. "I need you two to stay together, no matter what, and- _listen to me!_ " She shakes their shoulders, forces them to look away from the ensuing battle. It's taking everything she has to block out the sound of snapping teeth and bone, the yelps of pain as her pack is hurt. Her skin feels too tight, her bones small, her teeth too flat. The twins need to come first.

 _Then_ she can tear the motherfuckers that dare hurt her family _limb from limb_.

"Get off the property, and go to town."

"But-!" They both try to interject, but Maka shoots them down by tightening her grip on their shoulders, feeling a twinge of remorse as her claws dig into their skin but quickly burying it under the sheer need to keep them alive.

"No _fucking_ buts! I need you two to get the fuck out of here and get somewhere safe. Go to Kim's. If, for whatever reason, you can't…" She takes those precious seconds to consider. Not to Kid's, this could be his doing. Not to any of the lesser, local packs, they could be targets, too. "Go to the embassy." A small, hidden office in the town hall. It's technically unofficial and hidden under the guise of being a filing room, but it's a safe bet. Maybe the only one they have.

"Seriously?"

"Seriously! Now go! Stay together and do _not_ stop, no matter what." She pushes them behind her, almost takes the time to put a literal boot in their ass to make them go, until two vampires break off and launch at her. She catches the both of them by their throats, heaves with all her might to reverse their momentum and slam them into the ground. They snap and snarl, bare their teeth, the whites of their eyes black as disease, as death. There's something familiar about them niggling at the back of her mind. She doesn't have time to wonder at it, their hands clawing at her arms, scoring bleeding lines into her flesh. She snarls, pins one of the clawing arms down with her knee as she bows her head, a brief moment of what would look to be prayer in the battle, for the lost souls tearing her life apart, before she sinks her teeth into a throat, ripping through muscle and vein and sinew.

Blood. Black as ink, viscous and slick like oil sprays across her face. She spits the viscera in the face of the other, gagging at the blood that she'd swallowed. It burns like fire, lines of acid settling in her gut. The former makes an awful gurgling cry, though it doesn't try to get away, only tries to wriggle out of her grasp, still trying to attack her; though it's movements are a little sluggish. The other, with the same black eyes and unmistakable stench of death, screams and draws a knife, plunging it into her thigh. Maka screams through clenched teeth and, unthinkingly, whips the blade from her thigh and buries it to the hilt in the vampire's chest. It shrieks, it's thin, skeletal hands clawing at it's chest before it gives away, crumbling in on itself into a slick mess of penetralia and black goo. She does the same to the other, watches it die before springing to her feet.

The moment she gets to her feet, her right leg barks in pain, but the wound doesn't bleed freely, only oozes slowly. Now that she has a second, she feels the burn of her skin. She reaches down, tears the cut in her jeans wider to get a better look at the wound, and finds the skin surrounding it covered in burns, blisters. Her mind scrambles to comprehend, to understand _how..._ when it hits her. "Wolfsbane." Fuck. Her head snaps up, eyes frantically searching for her pack, judges that some of them-Stein, Marie, Kilik, Jackie-have taken the fight to the woods, others-Blake, Nygus, Harvar-are busy luring their prey to the edge of the pond, tossing them to the roiling waters to let the mermaids have their fun. The rest are scattered around the open yard, locked in battles of their own. "They have wolfsbane!" She hollers, voice echoing, and she knows by the way that some of them turn more defensive in their fighting that they heard her, and that some of them had figured it out, judging by the way some of their limbs hang awkwardly, gone numb with the poison.

She's about to take off, go help the others, when Soul appears at her side. Somehow, night has fully fallen again, she notices belatedly. The barrier. They must've done something to the barrier, to make it safe for these ferals, and to put her pack at a disadvantage. "What's going on?" He sounds breathless, funnily enough, but she can see the panic and fear in the way he holds himself, since he no longer shows the natural, human responses.

"Let me know once you figure it out," she says with a humorless laugh. He doesn't laugh, though. Just stares at her and waits for her instruction, every bit a member of her pack by now. He was family, and she decides, in that moment, that he needs to get far away from here. She doesn't know _how_ she knows, but whatever sent these...things, has something to do with Soul's Maker. "I need you to go find the twins and make sure they get out safe." He opens his mouth, undoubtedly to protest, but he quickly decides against it at the sound of scream that comes from the woods. Maka feels her heart clench painfully; it was Marie. Soul casts her one last lingering look before disappearing into the woods, following the twins' scent trail.

Once he's gone, she's free to do as she sees fit, so she pushes through the tingly, numbing pain in her leg and takes off at a wobbly sprint, stooping low enough to dig her shoulder into one of the feral vampire's gut, using her momentum to throw them forward and into the lake. Of course, it doesn't go down without clawing open the skin of her shoulder, the hot blood rolling down her back and soaking into the band of her pants, but she pays it little mind as it quickly begins to close up. They didn't think to coat their hands in wolfsbane, and she's grateful for their oversight. With Blake's help, Nygus chucks the a dismembered vampire into the water and the mermaids rise greedily to the surface. They hiss their thanks before disappearing with their prize, the water turning a sickly black in their wake. They share a quick look, questions on the tip of their tongues, but fire blooms out of the woods to the west, rising in a bright cloud against the night sky, reflecting off the water. Jackie. To the east, clouds roll in and thunder booms, lighting crackling in clear arcs through the otherwise clear sky. The twins.

"Blake, with me." Nygus and Harvar take off, running to the burning trees. They don't need her to tell them what to do from there. She and Blake turn and sprint into the incoming storm, a light drizzle at the treeline turning to pelting downpour the further in they get. The rain wipes away their trail, makes it hard to hear, and because of it, she doesn't see the feral that comes barreling out of the dark, tackling her into the mud. Blake cusses somewhere above her as the vampire bares its teeth in her face, and she struggles to get enough leverage against it to throw it off. Blake sloshes through the muck, and just as his hands clamp down on the vamp's shoulders, lighting lights up the sky, and through the rain falling in her eyes, Maka can make out the distinct outline of the _dumbest_ hairstyle she's ever seen, before Blake promptly rips the vampire away and tosses him against a nearby tree trunk. She scrambles to her feet, launching herself onto the vamp's chest, pinning his shoulders down with her knees, she frames his face with her hands, pushes his skull into the dirt, ignores how he snaps at her flesh and allows herself to get a good look at him. "Ox? Ox, is that you?" The vampire freezes, only for a moment, long enough to stare at her in deep-rooted confusion, before Blake materializes above his head and promptly plunges a broken branch into his chest.

Maka scrambles back as Ox falls away into nothingness, his remains mixing into the mud. Blake just stares at her in confusion, pushes waterlogged blue hair out of his eyes. "You knew him?"

"Yeah...he's a Hunter." The word drops like a stone between them, heavy and solid, a very specific kind of weight that settles in his gaze. It's then that she realizes why they seemed so familiar. Their clothes are different, but undoubtedly the signature fighting leathers. Is this why they've gone radio silent? "Blake, they're all Hunters."

A dangerous combo. Presumably newborn feral vampires with the knowledge of Hunters? Nevermind how they got past the barrier, they had a whole other problem to deal with first. Maka and Blake take off at a run, the tingling numbness in her leg gone in favor of needle-sharp pains in the very marrow of her bones. Still, she powers though it, and they quickly break into the eye of the storm, where they find Soul in the process of fighting off three ferals on his own, the twins nowhere in sight. Maka and Blake work in tandem to relieve him of two of his attackers, tearing into them with claws and teeth, eyes glowing viciously in the dim light, their hair and clothes soaked and plastered to their skin. Once their prey is adequately dispatched, they turn to find the final feral with Soul pinned to the ground, a dagger with a blade of pure silver piercing each shoulder to keep him down. Soul gags something awful as his attacher forces something down his throat. Blake takes the leg he'd just taken from one of the feral's friends, winds up, and cracks it in the face like a baseball on a tee, it's head snapping back with a crack of it's bone. It slumps back with a strange, gurgled kind of yelp, neck bent at an odd angle. Obviously not _permanently_ dead, but at least subdued enough to not be their problem for a little bit. Maka flops the feral off Soul, and quickly pulls the knives from his shoulders, noting with the horrible burning in her palms that the handles were silver too.

 _Hunters' knives_.

She drops them in the mud, kicks them way with the toe of her boot, and then plunges her hands into the mud to soothe the burn. She jerks her chin at Soul, lying motionless on the ground. "What'd they do to him?"

Blake kneels, works open Soul's jaw to see what damage they might have caused, pulls aside the collar of his shirt to see the wounds on each shoulder. "Liquid silver." He said simply, voice carefully devoid of emotion. Maka can't tell if it's because that's just how he gets in a crisis, or if it's because it's _Soul._ He and Blake had gotten really close over the past week, and she knows it can't be easy to see him in such a state. "What do we do?"

Maka rises from the mud and the muck, wipes her hands on her jeans. A crack of thunder reminds her-almost impatiently-that she still hasn't found the twins yet. "Can you carry him?" In answer, he stoops and slings him over his shoulders in a fireman's carry. Maka nods. "Good. Take him back to the house, see if the others need help. Go from there." They start off at a jog in different directions, and she calls over her shoulder, "You're in charge until I'm back!"

She doesn't mention that she has the distinct feeling she might not make it back.

Maka's almost to the barrier when she hears her name echo amongst the trees. She stops in her tracks, pine needles slipping beneath her boots. She whips her head around, searching for the source.

" _Maka! Help!"_

She takes off like a bullet from a gun, thorns tearing at her clothes and skin, sapling branches splitting the skin on her cheeks. A scream rings out, high and clear as a bell. The boom of thunder, the woods whiting out as Thunder brings down an arc of lightning. The smell of burning wood, streaks of black burned into the landscape of the forest from Fire's own fighting. Her throat feels tight, like a hand clamped down, crushing her windpipe. They weren't supposed to have to fight at all.

Maka breaks through the trees into a small clearing, finds her kids surrounded on all sides. Her nervous system whites out, her vision tunneling. She shifts without thinking, comes crashing down on the back of a vampire, sinks her teeth into hit's neck. She tears through one, two, three ferals before something pierces into her flank, and she crashes to the ground with a cry of pain, writhing in the dirt as it forces her out of her shift. An arrow, the head coated in more wolfsbane , sunk deep into her left thigh. Fire blasts a ball of flame at the marksman, but it disappears on the wind, turning to black mist before the projectile could reach it. She hisses a string of expletives through clenched teeth, reaching for the arrow. Her fingers pass through the shaft, and it's strange enough to draw her out of her pain for a moment, just long enough to try again. The same result, turning to the same black mist at her touch, re-solidifying once her hand moves away. Fantastic.

She groans something deep as she rises, caring little for the fact that she was butt-naked and more about the fact that there were still three more vampires and their disappearing friend with the bow. She hobbles into her closest approximation of a run, scooping up one of the ferals' dropped swords, the pommel searing into the palm of her hand, but she doesn't pay it any mind as she slashes it across the back of a vamp hellbent on chasing Thunder; catching it's attention long enough to shove it through it's chest. It squeals and squabbles, pushing itself further down on the blade in it's blind attempt to kill her instead. It falls to viscera at her feet, the blde dripping with it. Maka can't help but wonder what was done to them to make them so wholly disregard their own lives in favor of trying to kill her and her pack.

The thought is quickly cut short, however, as Fire yelps in pain, falling to the forest floor with his arm cradled to his chest. A vampire stands over him, licks the blood from it's blade without flinching at the silver's burn across it's tongue. Before Maka can react, Thunder launches herself onto the vamp's back pressing her palms to the sides of its neck and channeling pure lightning into its body, her body a willing conduit.

When the first arrow enters her body, she doesn't seem to notice.

When the second follows quickly after, she looks up, wide brown eyes meeting Maka's, forcing her to watch the as the pain registers on her face.

Fire and Maka both scream as Thunder releases her hold, falling to the ground with a heavy thump. Fire thrusts both his hands out, roasting the already smoking vampire to nothing but bone, the remaining skeleton falling to the ground with a clatter. Maka falls to her knees ad scrambles through the dirt to Thunder, a sob caught in her throat as she gathers the girl in her arms. Fire approaches slowly, fear in every line of his boy and _god_ they both look so small. She senses something coming, but doesn't make a move to stop it, to consumed in her grief, her fear. Fire, though. Fire blasts it away with nary a look, dropping to his knees before the two of them, hesitantly grabbing his sister's hand, wipes away the blood dribbling from the corner of her mouth as she takes wheezy, gasping breaths. The straight lines of the arrowheads protrude, sharp and true, through her torso, the shafts turned to mist when they come into contact with Maka's thighs beneath her body.

She doesn't realize she's crying until Thunder places a weak, shaky hand on her cheek, wiping away the tears. "Ma," She whispers so, so softly. "It hurts."

Maka pets her hair, wipes the mud from her cheeks, uses the neck of her shirt to clean the blood spatter from her neck. "I know, baby, I know. But you're gonna be okay, 'kay? You'll be fine, don't worry, we've got you." She knows she rambling now, knows that Thunder isn't _dumb_. Fire doesn't believe her either, she can tell by the look he keeps casting her way, but he doesn't say anything, just holds her hand that much tighter. Maka's racking her brain, desperately trying to find a way to get her back to the house, a way to fix this, to save her, but every breath comes slower and slower and she won't stop coughing up blood and she doesn't know what to do and- _the archer_.

The thought hits her just as it reappears dead ahead, aim set at the back of Fire's head and _she can't lose them both_ , the idea consumes her so fully that whatever wavering strength she might have left floods her system, and she somehow manages to flip their positions, finds herself still crouched in the dirt, yes, but now bowed over Thunder and Fire both, pulling them to her chest as the archer releases his arrow, fires shot after shot into Maka's back.

Her ears ring, and she commends herself for not screaming. At least, she doesn't _think_ she does, but there's so much going on she's overloaded, only able to focus on protecting her kids, in whatever capacity she can manage.

Somehow, she finds the strength to raise her head, meet Fire's wide, horrified gaze. Watches as flames, no, a roaring inferno, bigger than anything he's ever conjured before, blazes to life around them, reflecting in his eyes. It burns and roars and eats away the foliage around them, and she doesn't look, doesn't watch, but she assumes that he's turned the archer to ash when he finally lets the fire die.

"Is he…?" Thunder whispers, soft as cotton. So, so quiet.

Fire grips her hand, leans down so they're almost nose-to-nose. "He's dead. They're all dead. You're safe, you're safe, you're safe." She smiles, eyes crinkling at the corners, sears the memory of her smile into their minds. Fire smooths flyaway hairs out of her eyes, smooths her eyebrows, strokes his thumb across her forehead. She's Maka's baby, as close to a daughter as she ever could've wanted, but she was Fire's sister. His better half, the morning to his evening, the one person he'd been with his entire life and now she was...she was…

The storm in the distance disappears, fading out without a trace.

Maka awakes from an endless black lying on her stomach, every inch of her skin alive in agony.

The pain of her body doesn't compare with the memory of Thunder, weak and pale and cold, lying in her arms as the life left her eyes.

Maka weeps. Weeps for her almost-daughter. Weeps for Fire. Weeps for herself, in the darkness and the privacy of her own room. She deserves that much. She deserves to acknowledge her pain.

Eventually, someone comes into her room, sits on the edge of her bed. Pets her hair, checks her wounds.

They leave, whoever they were, once it becomes clear she wasn't going to be okay any time soon.

None of them were going to be okay any time soon.


End file.
